Russians who hacked Clinton campaign also targetted French candidate Emmanuel Macron

Hackers linked to the same Russian military unit that hacked Democratic computers in the United States during last year’s election also have sought to penetrate the networks of the leading candidate in France’s presidential elections, a leading cybersecurity firm says.

Researchers from Trend Micro, a global security software company, said Monday that Russian hackers took aim last month at the networks of Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who advocates a strong pan-European stance to combat meddling by Moscow.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin openly favours Macron’s opponent, Marine Le Pen, a far-right candidate who has faced allegations that her campaign received Russian financing. Le Pen and Putin share antipathy toward the European Union.

Macron and Le Pen were the top vote-getters in Sunday’s first-round presidential elections, and will face one another in a runoff May 7.

The hackers who went after Macron are the same ones who penetrated the networks of the Democratic National Committee in 2015-16 and hacked emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, which were later published by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group, Trend Micro experts said.