Sony breach said to have inspired Russian hacking into US election

Washington

THE United States' failure to retaliate strongly for the 2014 cyberattack against Sony Pictures may have helped inspire Russian hackers who sought to interfere in the 2016 US election, a senior congressional Democrat said on Tuesday.

"Russia may have concluded that they could hack American institutions and there'd be no price to pay," Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told a press breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.