The tech jargon in Mueller’s Russian indictment, explained

Spearphishing, VPNs, Bitcoin, and more about how the Russians allegedly hacked Clinton and the Democrats

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who charged Russian intelligence officers with stealing and leaking documents and emails to impact the 2016 election. (Source: Wikimedia)

Yesterday Robert Mueller’s special counsel indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the computers of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party, stealing documents and emails, and leaking them to impact the 2016 election.

This “bombshell” indictment has tremendous political implications, but it involves a lot of technology terms that non-experts might not be familiar with: spearphishing, VPNs, Bitcoin, and more. It’s vitally important that Americans understand how this attack worked — so first we need to demystify the tech jargon.

In this article, I’m going to break down the tech concepts in the indictment and explain, in plain English, how the Russians pulled off the hack.

Spearphishing: how the hackers broke in

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein alleged in his wonderfully-concise press conference (worth watching!) that the Russian hackers used a technique called spearphishing to get access to the email account of the Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta.