Democrat hack: Who is Guccifer 2.0?

The emails leaked by the WikiLeaks website have been damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign (Image: Getty)

A lone hacker calling themselves Guccifer 2.0 has claimed responsibility for a damaging hacking attack on the US Democratic Party.

In that attack, gigabytes of files including emails and other documents that revealed the inner workings of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were taken.

Technical evidence has now come to light suggesting Guccifer 2.0 has links with Russia, compounding theories that the hack was state-sponsored.

What's the evidence on both sides?

Who is Guccifer 2.0?

Finding out the identity of the hacker is difficult (THINKSTOCK)

We do not know the identity of the real person behind this hacker alias. It is a pseudonym adopted by someone who claims responsibility for the recent hack attack on the DNC - the organisation that oversees the running of the US Democratic party.

Whoever is behind Guccifer 2.0 is not thought to be connected to the original Guccifer, who is currently in a US jail awaiting sentencing on hacking and fraud charges.

Guccifer 2.0 also claims to be Romanian and, via a blog, has said they have been working alone. Many people are sceptical about these claims and others made on that blog.

So who was Guccifer 1.0?

Guccifer was the alias adopted by Marcel Lehel Lazar who, from 2013 onwards, targeted high-profile Americans, many of them politicians, and sought to hack into their personal email and social media accounts.

In January 2014, Lazar was arrested in Romania on hacking offences and was given a four-year jail term. In March 2016, he was extradited to the US to face trial on a variety of hacking and fraud charges.

In May 2016, while in jail, he told Fox News that he had repeatedly broken into a private email server set up by Hillary Clinton that handled her electronic correspondence.

Ms Clinton has denied the server was hacked and the US State Department said it could find no evidence supporting Lazar's claim.

There has been speculation that Russian agents trying to help Republican Donald Trump are to blame - Putin has described Mr Trump as talented and outstanding

Lazar said the Guccifer name comes from simply combining the Italian fashion brand Gucci with the name the Bible gives to the devil, Lucifer, before he was cast out.