On Monday, Illinois officials said hackers stole data from up to 200,000 voter records, although they told the Chicago Tribune that none of the records had been deleted or altered.
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The hack, which was initially reported by Yahoo, occurred in June and was discovered in July.
The database in IL included the names, addresses, birthdates and sex of voters. Some of the records include either last four digits of a voter’s social security number or drivers’ license numbers. That system contains the personal information of voters, along with their voting precincts.
While it is amusing for Colbert to make light of the recent situation, voters are definitely concerned that Russian hackers were able to grab that kind of information from registered voters.
The FBI is warning state officials to boost their election security in light of evidence that hackers breached the election systems of a pair of states.
When they took the system offline to review any vulnerabilities, they discovered that a county election official’s username and password had been posted online publicly.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s office works on cybersecurity issues in cooperation with Robert S. von Wolffradt, the state of Iowa’s Chief Information Officer, Hall added. He also said that one of the methods used was very similar to a method used in other intrusions suspected of being carried out by the Russian government, including one this month on the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Meanwhile, in Arizona, the hackers attempted a security breach using malicious software but were not successful in doing so.
“It was an eye opener”, one senior law enforcement official told Yahoo!
According to Bloomberg, the federal government could step in to offer extra assistance to state election officials. States have resisted those moves. “This data is provided in order to help systems administrators guard against the actions of persistent cyber criminals”.
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“This is a big deal”, said Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer for ThreatConnect, a cybersecurity firm, who reviewed the Federal Bureau of Investigation alert at the request of Yahoo News. The Board of Elections says it will contact anyone who was affected. The voting system, the machines you actually vote on, is separate.
