The 2020 election is now just months away—and Russia is reportedly once again making an effort to intervene. The New York Times reports that Russian military hackers in November successfully hacked into a server for Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden previously sat and that stands at the center of President Donald Trump's impeachment. And while Trump's alleged attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into digging up dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden may not have worked out as he hoped, Russia may now be taking the Biden smear campaign into their own hands.

Per the Times, the Russian hacking effort, carried out by a military group formerly known as G.R.U., used phishing tactics to crack Burisma systems, sending employees emails that appear to have come from inside the company and setting up fake websites that appear to be sign-in pages for Burisma subsidiaries. As employees fell for the hacking efforts and handed over their sign-in information, Russia was able to gain access to one of Burisma's servers—echoing the G.R.U.'s previous hacking efforts against the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in 2016. “The attacks were successful,” Area1 co-founder Oren Falkowitz, whose firm detected the attacks, told the Times, adding that the timing on the Russian hacking campaign “mirrors” the DNC and Podesta hacks. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.”

While it still remains officially unclear what exactly the Russians were looking for, or what they found, the Times notes that Biden was likely the target, as “experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens—the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine.” In addition to the hacking, an American security official also told the Times that Russian spies in Ukraine are running their own parallel effort to damage Biden, and “are trying to penetrate Burisma and working sources in the Ukrainian government in search of emails, financial records and legal documents.” Trump and his allies (particularly Rudy Giuliani) have repeatedly alleged wrongdoing regarding Hunter Biden's spot on the Burisma board and Joe Biden's role in pushing out Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating Burisma. (There is no evidence to corroborate these allegations, and both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.) While Trump's alleged attempts to persuade the Ukrainian government to investigate Burisma for his own political gain may have been thwarted by the whistle-blower and ensuing impeachment inquiry, Russia's efforts suggest that they may be doing what Ukraine wouldn't—with the explicit goal of helping Trump's 2020 chances.

Assuming that Russia was digging around for damaging information on the Bidens, the Burisma hack suggests Russia is repeating its 2016 playbook ahead of 2020, using traditional hacking efforts to damage Trump's rival. “The Burisma hack is a cookie-cutter G.R.U. campaign,” Falkowitz told the Times. “Russian hackers, as sophisticated as they are, also tend to be lazy. They use what works. And in this, they were successful.” Targeting Burisma was seemingly part of a broader hacking effort, as the Times reported Friday that there have been approximately 1,000 phishing attempts against each leading Democratic candidate within the past two months alone, according to Area1. But traditional hacking campaigns are likely just the beginning of Russia's 2020 plans. The Times reported that Russia is “refreshing” their operations and employing more sophisticated methods to better cover their tracks in 2020, and security researchers predicted to my colleague Nick Bilton that Russia's goal in November won't just be to spread misinformation and attack the Democratic nominee—but to stop voters from even getting to the polls in the first place. “The logic in security circles is now: How will Russia create a digital version of voter suppression?” one researcher told Bilton in November. “Essentially digitally crippling people from being able to get to the polls on Election Day in 2020.”