The FBI discovered breaches in voter registration databases in IL and Arizona but did not specify who might have been behind it.
Advertisement
However, the authorities have attributed the attacks to Russian spy agencies, NBC News quoted USA intelligence officials as saying. Officials with the Board of Elections are “highly confident they (the hackers) weren’t able to change anything, although the investigation is still going on” according to Menzel. Federal officials said the IL attack was the first successful intrusion into a state voter registration database.
The FBI is warning state officials to boost their election security in light of evidence that hackers targeted related data systems in IL and Arizona.
It was later determined that Russia-based hackers were behind the security breaches, which compromised the information of as many as 200,000 records of voters in IL.
Comey, speaking at a cybersecurity conference Tuesday, declined to give details about what the FBI was investigating in connection with the political hacking but indicated the agency was closely watching what foreign countries are doing.
Experts believe that there’s no way to know if the attacks were attempts to compromise the voting system or simply part of the ongoing efforts of hackers worldwide to harvest information about individuals that can be sold online to criminals looking for identity theft victims.
Election databases are attractive targets to hackers because they contain personal information that can be cobbled together with other data to help criminals steal money.
The incidents prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to hold a conference call with state election officials earlier this month.
The Kremlin has said repeatedly, and as recently as earlier on Tuesday, that statements accusing Russian Federation of involvement in any cyberattacks on the U.S. election system or the Democratic Party are groundless, based on nothing and totally unfounded. They (the hackers) appear to be most interested in voter lists according to what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has indicated to our department. Additionally, in August 2016 attempted intrusion activities into another state’s Board of Election system identified the IP address, 185.104.9.39 used in the aforementioned compromise.
Advertisement
Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey and said recent intelligence briefings has made him concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “goal is tampering with this election”.
