America's retaliation against Russian hacking.

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators visiting eastern European allies to discuss security issues called for sanctions against Russia for interfering in the presidential election by hacking American political sites and email accounts. Their demands came amid ongoing discussions among U.S. officials on an imminent response to alleged Russian meddling that would ensure the U.S. takes action before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

"We have to sanction Russia for these cyberattacks (and) send a clear message to the incoming administration that there is a lot of bipartisan support in Congress for going after this," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told The Associated Press by phone from Latvia.

Klobuchar joined Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in their visits to Russian neighbors, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Georgia as well as Montenegro.

Russian officials have denied the Obama administration's accusation that the highest-levels of the Russian government were involved in trying to influence the U.S. presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia's goal was to help Trump win — an assessment Trump has dismissed as ridiculous.

The Obama administration has said the U.S. will respond at a time and with a means of its choosing, and that all responses may not be publicly known.

The lawmakers on Wednesday reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the Baltics, saying the relationship with the three former Soviet states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — "will not change" under the new administration.

In summer 2015, an APT29 spearphishing campaign directed emails containing a malicious link to over 1,000 recipients, including multiple U.S. Government victims. APT29 used legitimate domains, to include domains associated with U.S. organizations and educational institutions, to host malware and send spearphishing emails. In the course of that campaign, APT29 successfully compromised a U.S. political party. At least one targeted individual activated links to malware hosted on operational infrastructure of opened attachments containing malware. APT29 delivered malware to the political party’s systems, established persistence, escalated privileges, enumerated active directory accounts, and exfiltrated email from several accounts through encrypted connections back through operational infrastructure.

In spring 2016, APT28 compromised the same political party, again via targeted spearphishing. This time, the spearphishing email tricked recipients into changing their passwords through a fake webmail domain hosted on APT28 operational infrastructure. Using the harvested credentials, APT28 was able to gain access and steal content, likely leading to the exfiltration of information from multiple senior party members. The U.S. Government assesses that information was leaked to the press and publicly disclosed.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is not an individual one can easily fool. Despite suggestions from the foreign ministry to expel 35 American diplomats in response to President Obama’s similar sanctions, Putin is not taking the bait. On Friday, Putin announced he will not be expelling any Americans from his country, mentioning Obama’s act was designed to provoke a reaction.

In his formal statement, Putin mentions the Obama administration swung low by targeting foreign diplomats and their families days before New Year’s celebrations. An excerpt of his statement from the Kremlin website can be read below:

Quote:

“We reserve the right to retaliate, but we will not sink to the level of this irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy. We will take further moves on restoring Russian-American relations based on the policies that the administration of President-elect Donald Trump adopts. We will not forbid families and children from spending the New Year’s holidays at the places they are used to. Moreover, I invite the children of all American diplomats with accreditation in Russia to New Year’s and Christmas festivities in the Kremlin.”

Putin then further mentions Obama is ending his last few days in the White House on a low note, followed by an ending line congratulating Trump: “I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump and the entire American people!”