WikiLeaks has released what may be the key email that led to one of the biggest cybersecurity breaches in presidential campaign history -- allowing hackers to gain access to Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account. 
 
 A new email thread released Friday shows Podesta got a March 19 email from “Google” notifying him someone had his "password" and tried to sign in from Ukraine. 
 
 The IT team told Podesta the message was legit and he should change his password. But it appears the email actually was a phishing ploy – and likely gave the world access to the contents of his account. 
 
 In the new batch of emails leaked Friday, Podesta’s assistant Sara Latham forwarded the "Google" email to Charles Delavan, a Clinton campaign IT official, to see if it was real. 
 
 Delavan told her that it was a “legitimate email.” 
 
 “John needs to change his password immediately, and ensure that two-factor authentication is turned on his account … It is absolutely imperative that this is done ASAP,” he wrote, sharing a Google link where he could change his password. 
 
 Latham then sent Podesta and another campaign official an email saying the message was "REAL." 
 
 The email chain does not detail what happened next. But a previous report from Motherboard said on that same day, Podesta opened a link that gave hackers access to his email. The hackers reportedly used a URL shortened using the Bitly service, which reportedly contained Podesta's encoded Gmail address and gave the hackers access. 
 
 The March 19 email published by WikiLeaks indeed includes a shortened Bitly link at the bottom where Podesta was directed to change his password. 
 
 Cybersecurity firm SecureWorks told FoxNews.com the alleged hacking method is the same used by Fancy Bear, a Russian hacker group -- and the link was created specifically to target Podesta's account. 
 
 “We can confirm that in the leaked email, the Bitly link listed is one of the links we saw created by the Fancy Bear group to target Podesta,” a spokeswoman for the group said. “It was one of four links created to target Mr. Podesta’s Gmail account.” 
 
 
 
 The Obama administration recently blamed senior Russian officials for orchestrating a string of hackings at the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The Obama administration, however, has not publicly accused Russia of the Podesta hack. 
 
 Motherboard wrote: “None of this new data constitutes a smoking gun that can clearly frame Russia as the culprit behind the almost unprecedented hacking campaign that has hit the DNC and several other targets somewhat connected to the U.S. presidential campaign.” 
 
 Friday’s WikiLeaks email release – part 21 of its Podesta series – brings the total emails released so far to 35,594. 
 
 FoxNews.com's Adam Shaw contributed to this report. 

 Story highlights Clinton campaign staffers believed attempted hack email was "legitimate" 
 
 Cybersecurity experts see direct link to Russian cyberespionage group 
 
 (CNN) A phishing email sent to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta may have been so sophisticated that it fooled the campaign's own IT staffers, who at one point advised him it was a legitimate warning to change his password. 
 
 The stolen email thread, released by WikiLeaks Friday, also provides the most direct evidence yet that the Russian government was behind the damaging hack into the Clinton campaign, according to a private cybersecurity company. 
 
 The thread shows a Clinton campaign staffer writing that a phishing email sent to Podesta's Gmail account on March 19, 2016, is "legitimate," though the staffer advises him to go through Google's official procedures to update his password. It's not clear if Podesta gave hackers his password before he was advised by his staff, or if the email in question was the one that led to the hack. 
 
 The Clinton campaign has not commented directly on the hacked emails and CNN cannot independently verify their authenticity. 
 
 On its face, the source of the potentially dangerous email is Google, but a closer look at the actual mailing address shows an unfamiliar or bogus-looking account: "no-reply@accounts.googlemail.com." 
 
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– It appears we now know how John Podesta's email account got hacked, and it seems Russia was behind it. CNN reports a new batch of emails belonging to Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman released Friday includes one from March with the subject line "Someone has your password." The email appeared to be from Google and claimed that someone in the Ukraine had tried to sign into Podesta's email account. Despite coming from a highly suspicious "googlemail.com" address, a Clinton IT staffer declared the phishing email "legitimate" and told Podesta to "change his password immediately," according to CBS News. The IT staffer included a link to Google's actual password-changing page. Instead, it appears Podesta or someone else clicked on a Bitly link labeled "CHANGE PASSWORD" provided in the phishing email. "We can confirm that in the leaked email, the Bitly link listed is one of the links we saw created by the Fancy Bear group to target Podesta,” a cyber security company's spokesperson tells Fox News. Fancy Bear is a Russian government hacking group already linked to the hack of the DNC. The same phishing technique was used to gain access to both the email accounts of the DNC and Colin Powell. As of Friday, WikiLeaks has released more than 35,500 emails from Podesta's account.