Hacker leaks Democratic party officials' personal information

Guccifer 2.0 strikes again — this time, the hacker (or group of hackers) released internal passwords and cellphone numbers for personnel from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and other Democratic party officials and staffers.

The documents include the cellphone numbers of former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer.

Guccifer 2.0 also posted passwords to sites like Lexis Nexis, The Wall Street Journal, and the federal court system database Pacer. They also mocked the Democrats for the simplicity of their online security.

This week's leak isn't as explosive or incriminating as Guccifer 2.0's first document dump, which threw threw the party into turmoil just days before the Democratic National Convention last month.

Those revelations showed how the DNC, a purportedly neutral body, favored Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her opponent Bernie Sanders, and led to the resignation of former DNC chair Wasserman Schultz. After that intrusion, US authorities began investigating its connection to an earlier cyber attack on the DCCC.

While authorities were aware of the earlier attack on the DCCC, this is the first time that Guccifer 2.0 is releasing documents explicitly proving their responsibility, and released a gleeful statement online.

"It's time for new revelations now," Guccifer 2.0 wrote. "All of you may have heard about the DCCC hack. As you see I wasn't wasting my time! It was even easier than in the case of the DNC breach."

"We are aware of reports that documents claimed to be from our network have been released and are investigating their authenticity," DCCC national press secretary Meredith Kelly said in a statement.

US officials and cyber experts say they have uncovered enough evidence to suggest that Guccifer 2.0 is linked to Russia's military intelligence organization, GRU. Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, writing for VICE's Motherboard, said that Guccifer 2.0 is likely "nothing but a disinformation or deception campaign by Russian state-sponsored hackers to cover up their own hack." In Franceschi-Bicchierai's interview with Guccifer 2.0 — who is named for his or her favorite Italian designer label — he or she denied any links to the Kremlin.

Follow Tess Owen on Twitter: @misstessowen