The U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations during the campaign for the Nov. 8th presidential election. According to Reuters, U.S. officials have said in the past few months that they believe cyber attacks were orchestrated by hackers backed by the Russian government, possibly to disrupt the election. Russia has dismissed allegations it was involved in cyber attacks on the organizations. A statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said, "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities." The statement did not blame the Russian government for hacking attempts against state election systems. However, it said "scanning and probing" of those systems originated in most cases from servers operated by a Russian company.