The alert issued earlier this month by the FBI’s Cyber Division mentions of “attempted intrusion activities” by unknown threat actors.
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Federal Bureau of Investigation sources informed Yahoo News that voter databases in IL and Arizona had been compromised by hackers who are believed to be foreign.
The elections board says any voter who believes he or she is the victim of identity theft should contact the IL attorney general’s identity theft hotline at 866-999-5630.
Could this election be compromised?
Along with Arizona, hackers breached voter registration databases in IL.
“In the meantime, we’ll continue to stay in close touch with election administrators to help them safeguard their systems, and continue to give people confidence in the ability of the election to take place and us to continue to have confidence in the results”.
Board of Election officials are “confident” that the attackers were unable to change information, but do note that the investigation is still ongoing. Those hackers who are believed to be Russian attacked even the computer systems of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republican Party organizations.
The FBI just found evidence that Russian hackers were behind breaches in IL and Arizona’s voter registration databases. The FBI recommends increasing the computer security of all the voting systems in the country.
The FBI received information of an additional IP address, 5.149.249.172, which was detected in the July 2016 compromise of a state’s Board of Election Web site. This designation would allow for state officials to request federal funding to protect their voting systems, according to Yahoo.
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My first thought when I heard about the hacking in Arizona and IL was to do my own research on what systems did they hack and if there was a potential risk to Oakland County, said Rozell. What the hackers plan to do with the information is unclear-it could range from stealing voters’ personal information to using voter records to affect the election process-and USA intelligence officials did not speak directly about what they believe the intention of these hackers truly is. To bolster elections’ cybersecurity, the government would need to designate election systems as “critical infrastructure”, which is something Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said should be considered.
