Updated | Kremlin slams 'extremely scurrilous' US hacking accusations
The CIA has judged that the Russian cyber attacks were intended to influence the election in Donald Trump’s favour, with President Barack Obama warning that action will be taken • Russian authorities have denied the accusations
A senior White House official said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely to have been aware of the cyber attacks
The Kremlin has hit back on Friday at hack accusations made by US officials, calling them ‘extremely scurrilous’.
Three US officials said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin supervised his intelligence agencies' hacking of the US presidential election and turned it from a general attempt to discredit American democracy to an effort to help Donald Trump.
Separately, a senior White House official said on Thursday that Putin was likely to have been aware of the cyber attacks but he fell short of accusing the Russian President, Reuters news agency reported.
"I don't think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it," Ben Rhodes, the White House's deputy national security adviser said. "When you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government."
"At this point they need to either stop talking about this or finally present some sort of proof. Otherwise this looks extremely scurrilous," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists during a visit to Japan.
US intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia tried to influence the election by hacking people and institutions, including Democratic Party bodies, has angered President-elect Trump, who has said he won the 8 November vote fairly. Russian officials have denied accusations of interference in the US election.
The US officials - who reportedly have knowledge of intelligence information on the matter - said on the condition of anonymity that the hacking of US political groups and figures had a more general focus at first.
"This began merely as an effort to show that American democracy is no more credible than Putin's version is," one of the officials said.
"It gradually evolved from that to publicising (Hillary) Clinton's shortcomings and ignoring the products of hacking Republican institutions, which the Russians also did," the official said.
By the fall, the official said, it became an effort to help Trump's campaign because "Putin believed he would be much friendlier to Russia, especially on the matter of economic sanctions" than Democratic rival Clinton.
Democratic President Barack Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio that the United States will take action against Russia.
"I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections ... we need to take action and we will," he said according to excerpts of the Thursday interview released by NPR.
"At a time and a place of our own choosing. Some of it may be ... explicit and publicised; some of it may not be. ... Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it," Obama said.
NBC reported earlier that US intelligence officials have "a high level of confidence" Putin was personally involved in the Russian cyber campaign against the United States.
Hacked emails of Democratic operatives and Clinton aides were leaked during the presidential campaign, and at times dominated the news agenda. The US officials said Russia also hacked Republicans but did little to nothing with the information they found.
