WASHINGTON — Four years ago, well before the furor over allegations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election that put Donald Trump in the White House, at least 195 Web addresses belonging to Trump, his family, or his business empire were hijacked by hackers possibly operating out of Russia.
The Trump Organization denied the domain names were ever compromised. But a review of Internet records by the Associated Press and cybersecurity experts shows otherwise. And it was not until this past week, after the Trump camp was asked about it by the AP, that the last of the tampered-with addresses were repaired.
After the hack, computer users who visited the Trump-related addresses were unwittingly redirected to servers in St. Petersburg, Russia, that cybersecurity experts said contained malicious software commonly used to steal passwords or hold files for ransom. Whether anyone fell victim to such tactics is unclear.
A further mystery is who the hackers were and why they did it.
The discovery represents a new twist in the Russian hacking story, which up to now has focused mostly on what US intelligence officials say was a campaign by the Kremlin to try to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and benefit Trump’s.
It is not known whether the hackers who tampered with the Trump addresses are the same ones who stole Democratic officials’ e-mails and embarrassed the party in the heat of the campaign last year. Nor is it clear whether the hackers were acting on behalf of the Russian government.
The affected addresses, or domain names, included donaldtrump.org, donaldtrumpexecutiveoffice.com, donaldtrumprealty.com, and barrontrump.com. They were compromised in two waves of attacks in August and September 2013, according to the review of internet records.
Many of the addresses were not being used by Trump. Businesses and public figures commonly buy addresses for possible future use or to prevent them from falling into the hands of rivals or enemies. The Trump Organization and its affiliates own at least 3,300 in all.
According to security experts, the hackers hijacked the addresses by penetrating and altering the domain registration records housed at GoDaddy.com, a seller of web addresses.
Accounts at GoDaddy, like at any site that requires a user name and password, are often subject to malicious messages known as phishing attacks, which are designed to trick people to reveal that personal information to hackers.
Computer users who entered or clicked on one of those Trump addresses probably would have had no idea they were redirected to servers in Russia.
Within days after the Trump Organization was asked about the tampering, the affected Web addresses were all corrected. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
GoDaddy spokesman Nick Fuller said the company had no breaches of its system in 2013 and has measures in place to monitor for malicious activity. Fuller would not discuss any customers in particular.
Some cybersecurity experts said there is an outside chance the tampering was a probe — an attempt to test security for an eventual effort to gather information on Trump or his business dealings. But those experts were only guessing.
There was no evidence the hackers ultimately broke into server computers at the Trump Organization or other Trump interests.
‘‘This is beyond me,’’ said Paul Vixie, CEO of the San Mateo, Calif., Internet security company Farsight Security Inc. ‘‘I have simply never seen a benefit accrue from an attack of this kind. I’m at loss, unless it’s a demonstration of capabilities.’’
In a separate development, Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, has told the House Intelligence Committee that he met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip to Moscow, The New York Times reported.
Shortly after the trip, Page sent an e-mail to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators, and business executives during his time in Moscow, according to one person familiar with the contents of the message.
The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months, and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign.
In multiple interviews with The Times, he had either denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 visit or sidestepped the question, saying he met with “mostly scholars.’’
Page confirmed the meetings in an interview Friday , but played down their significance.
“I had a very brief hello to a couple of people. That was it,’’ he said. He said one of the people he met was a “senior person,’’ but would not confirm the person’s identity.
