FBI Warns States of Potential Hackers Targeting Election Systems

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spoke with state election officials “about security standards and how to prevent cyberattacks from impacting the voting process”. But more troubling, Victor said it could take months before experts even knew if our hackers rigged the election because some states’ systems are so outdated. Reagan shut down the state’s voter registration network in response to the report.

The FBI is warning state officials to boost their election security in light of evidence that hackers targeted related data systems in two states.

Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation notified state election officials of the data breaches and issued a “flash alert”-first reported by Yahoo News-urging them to be aware of any additional attempts by the Russian hackers to infiltrate voter registration systems”.

The bulletin does not identify the states in question, but sources familiar with the document say it refers to the targeting by suspected foreign hackers of voter registration databases in Arizona and IL. Federal officials said the IL attack was the first successful intrusion into a state voter registration database. State election websites in IL and Arizona experienced hack-related shutdowns earlier this summer.

On Monday state officials said the hackers stole data from as many as 200,000 voter records, although they told the Chicago Tribune no such record had been deleted or altered.

The FBI hasn’t named the two states, but it described a “compromise” of one elections board website and “attempted intrusion activities” in another state’s system.

The alert came as federal authorities are investigating a series of cyber attacks against non-governmental organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, thought to be the work of Russian government hackers.

“In addition, California elections officials are required to conduct a manual tally of 1 percent of the precincts as part of the official canvass of election results as a safeguard to ensure votes were accurately read and tallied”.

Election officials say they’ve since implemented measures to reinforce the system.

Johnson said the agency was not aware of “specific or credible cyber security threats” to the election at the time.