If Russia was indeed behind last week’s leak of stolen data from the Democratic National Committee, we may be seeing one of the most sordid tools of its domestic politics deployed as a hostile weapon in foreign policy.

There is a Russian word for this practice: “kompromat.” A portmanteau of the Russian words for “compromising” and “material,” it refers to the timeworn tradition of obtaining information and using it to smear or influence public officials. Unscrupulous Russian politicians have been doing it for decades; there are kompromat websites (which, unsurprisingly, are often blocked or harassed).

The way it works is simple. First, Kremlin insiders or other powerful individuals buy, steal or manufacture incriminating information about an opponent, an enemy, or any other person who poses a threat to powerful interests. Then, they publish it, destroying the target’s reputation in order to settle public scores or manipulate public events.

If American officials and analysts are correct in their assessment that Russia was behind this spring’s hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, it seems that kompromat is being translated to the international stage.