Russia unsuccessfully tried to hack Sen. Claire McCaskill's office

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is the first known target of Russian interference in the 2018 midterm election, The Daily Beast reports.

In order to steal email passwords, Russia's GRU intelligence agency — the same agency behind the 2016 election cyber attacks — sent emails to Senate targets in August 2017, claiming their Microsoft Exchange password had expired, and they needed to make a new one, The Daily Beast says. Anyone who clicked on the link was brought to a replica of the U.S. Senate's Active Directory Federation Services login, used for email and other services.

The Daily Beast was able to see a snapshot of the different targets who tried to change their passwords, and saw the email of one of McCaskill's policy aides. McCaskill said in a statement the attempt to steal the password was unsuccessful, and it was "outrageous that they think they can get away with this." Russian President Vladimir Putin is "a thug and a bully," she added, and "I will not be intimidated." McCaskill is considered one of the Senate's most vulnerable Democrats, as Missouri went for President Trump in the 2016 election.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.