• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, December 1, 2016

Russia’s attempts to influence U.S. politics during the 2016 presidential election extended beyond hacking and leaking sensitive documents and emails from organizations like the Democratic National Committee, according to Bloomberg: Russian spooks also used social media to help spread stories based on this hacked material as well as a variety of misinformation, Bloomberg reports, citing cyber-security firm FireEye.

FireEye analyzed thousands of social media posts during the election and detected evidence of an online social media influence strategy similar to Russia’s past cyber-warfare efforts, including previous cyber-attacks against foes in Ukraine, Estonia and Georgia. However, the scale of these efforts during the U.S. election was unprecedented, FireEye chairman David DeWalt tells Bloomberg: “We’ve seen what I believe is the most historical event maybe in American democracy history in terms of the Russian campaign.”

FireEye identified social media campaigns linked to “hacktivist” personas believed to have been created by Russian intelligence, including Guccifer 2.0, DC Leaks and Anonymous Poland.

In the lead-up to the election, U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that the hacking operation against the DNC bore the signs of other Russian intelligence operations, all of which had the ultimate goal of influencing public opinion.

Separately, Buzzfeed reports that U.S. intelligence officials also believe Russia helped spread fake news and propaganda as part of an attempt to influence public opinion during the U.S. presidential election – a revelation sure to stoke fresh concern about the impact of bogus news stories on social media on American politics.

On that note, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are asking for the White House to declassify information about Russian intelligence efforts to influence the presidential election. The FBI is still investigating the hack of the DNC email servers, followed by the publication of discrediting emails by Wikileaks, earlier this year.