As a precautionary measure, the state’s entire voter registration was shut down the next day and remained shut down for several days.
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IL officials said they shut down their vote registration system for 10 days after the hack, and the breaches led to the theft of data from more than 200,000 voter records.
The incidents prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to hold a conference call with state election officials earlier this month.
After taking the registration system offline, it was discovered that an official’s username and password had been posted online.
Those hackers who are believed to be Russian attacked even the computer systems of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republican Party organizations.
Although the hackers did not alter any data, the intrusion into the IL database marks the first succesful compromise of a state election database, federal officials said. It has offered to help states increase security of their systems, but states have rebuffed federal help and largely believe their systems are secure.
Illinois Board of Elections’ general counsel Ken Menzel told Yahoo News that hackers were able to download the personal data of up to 200,000 state voters.
The 700 confirmed voters will be notified by mail about the hack, as will the 86,000 voters whose records may have been viewed, officials said.
While the answer to that question remains maybe news has emerged that voting systems in two states have actually been hacked, including one instance of voting registration data being stolen. So far no sign that any of those have been compromised, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation says states should be on guard to protect against computer attacks that could jeopardize the integrity of their elections.
The warning comes after hackers broke into Illinois’ election database.
Roberts said he’s not positive the new FBI’s “flash alert” refers to Arizona, but said it appears likely. The Department of Homeland Security also got involved, he said.
Back in June, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office made a decision to shut down a part of its website after a threat to the voting registration system was discovered by the federal agents. IL officials similarly suspended their voter registration system after discovering a breach in July.
In a statement, FBI spokesperson Jillian Stickels said, “While we cannot comment on specific alerts, what I can say is that in furtherance of public-private partnerships, the FBI routinely advises private industry of various cyber threat indicators observed during the course of our investigations”.
“We see attacks literally every day, but it’s not necessarily against voter registration information”, he said. A month ago a breach of voter information left many people anxious that their personal information was now vulnerable.
The attack in June targeted a county election official through a phishing email, according to Brian Calkin, vice president of operations for the Center of Internet Security, which runs MS-ISAC.
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Nonetheless, more than 30 states have some provisions for online voting, primarily for voters living overseas of serving in the military.
