The sensitive emails of senior GOP officials suffered a “major hack” prior to the 2018 midterm elections; exposing countless messages to an “outside intruder.”

“The House GOP campaign arm suffered a major hack during the 2018 election, exposing thousands of sensitive emails to an outside intruder, according to three senior party officials,” reports Politico.

“The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor,” adds the article.

An NRCC vendor detected the hack in April and alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. But senior House Republicans including Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise were not informed until POLITICO contacted the NRCC on Monday. https://t.co/AOpTqOppvi — POLITICO (@politico) December 4, 2018

The report claims that senior House Republicans -including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and Steve Scalise- were not informed of the massive security breach.

GOP officials claimed they withheld the information from top legislators because they intended to “conduct their own investigation.”

Read the full report at Politico.