Russian hackers reportedly attempted to breach state voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois, US intelligence officials confirmed.
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The FBI issued an alert early this month warning state elections officials about the data breach, according to the Yahoo report.
On Aug. 15, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call with state election officials, offering the Department of Homeland Security’s assistance in protecting against cyber attacks.
“We see attacks literally every day, but it’s not necessarily against voter registration information”, he said. Furthermore, sources told Yahoo that “foreign hackers” penetrated the IL board of election site back in July and made off with the personal data of as many as 200,000 IL voters. Not all outdated information has been purged, according to Menzel, so some of those records likely include information for deceased voters or those who have subsequently moved.
“This is the closest we’ve come to tying a recent hack to the Russian government”, the official said.
The FBI alert obtained by Yahoo News lists eight IP addresses the bureau believes were used in the IL and Arizona attacks, including one used in both. DNC e-mails have since been distributed on the Internet by WikiLeaks, though founder Julian Assange denies that he had any link to the Russian hackers.
Some hope this will finally convince the Department of Homeland Security to designate state election systems as part of the nation’s “critical infrastructure”, which would mean they’d require federal protection.
Yahoo reported that the two states, unnamed in the bulletin, were in Arizona and IL.
The warning comes after in June, a hacker allegedly gained access to Arizona state election officials’ login information, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Arizona attack was more limited and involved introducing malicious software into the voter registration system, Yahoo said.
However, the authorities have attributed the attacks to Russian spy agencies, NBC News quoted United States intelligence officials as saying. The bulletin implied that the bureau was looking for any signs that the attacks may have been attempting to target even more than the two states. Two other officials said that although United States intelligence agencies have yet to attribute the breach to the Russian government, they are concerned about it.
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The attackers struck again in August, going after Arizona this time. The “flash alert” from the FBI’S Cyber Division comes as concerns grow that foreign terrorists – or rogue governments – would enjoy disrupting the American elections on November 8.
