“Look, we’re watching the Russians. We’re seeing them penetrate some of your infrastructure. Here’s what we’ve seen. What can we do to try to assist?”

"In mid-March, researchers with Trend Micro, the cybersecurity giant based in Tokyo, watched the same Russian intelligence unit behind some of the Democratic National Committee hacks start building the tools to hack Mr. Macron’s campaign."

How does US Govt and security firms monitor such hacks? What are they looking for and how do they do it?

If they could provide a single shred of evidence for Russian hacking, other than Russian sounding usernames, that would be great. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the CIA leaks prove that governments have the ability to easily spoof the origin of the hack?

Could the "rushed" approach of the Russians have to do with the characteristics of the French election? That up untill the first round it was not clear who would go up against Le Pen.