US think tank Heritage Foundation hit by cyberattack

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation said Friday it suffered a cyberattack earlier this week.

A person with knowledge of the cyberattack told TechCrunch that efforts were underway at Heritage to remediate the cyberattack, but it was not immediately clear what data, if any, was taken.

Politico, which first broke news of the cyberattack Friday, cited a Heritage official who said the organization “shut down its network to prevent further malicious activity while we investigated the incident.” .

The outlet quoted the Heritage official as saying the cyberattack likely came from nation-state hackers, but did not provide proof of that claim.

Heritage spokesperson Noah Weinrich declined to comment when contacted by email on Thursday, and did not immediately comment when contacted by TechCrunch on Friday.

Founded in 1973, Heritage is based in Washington, D.C. and supports and lobbies on conservative issues. The foundation exerts great influence on Republican politics. Think tanks are frequent targets of foreign cyberattacks and espionage efforts by nation states because of their ties to government and policymaking, many of which are led by former officials of the American administration.

Heritage was hit by a cyberattack in 2015 in which hackers stole internal emails and personal information from its donors.