SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the your-vote-really-doesn't-count dept.
An anonymous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official has told several media outlets that hackers have targeted voter registration systems in 20 states.
It also has been reported that nine, and more recently, 18 states, have sought assistance from the DHS to "help improve cyber security for their election systems":
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told a Senate hearing Tuesday that 18 states have taken up his agency's offer to help improve cyber security for their election systems, in the wake of suspected breaches blamed on Russian hackers. "We are seeing a limited number of instances where there have been efforts through cyber intrusions to get into the online presence of various state election agencies. And, one or two of them have been successful, others have not," Johnson said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
[...] Asked by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, whether hackers are seeking to change votes, Johnson said: "What we are seeing are efforts to get into voter registration rolls, the identity of registered voters, things of that nature, not to change a ballot count." Johnson said the matter was still an active investigation and that the source of the intrusions hadn't been concluded.
US officials briefed on the investigation have told CNN that an intrusion in an Illinois voter registration database and an attempted breach in Arizona are believed to be the work of hackers working for Russian spy agencies. US officials say there's strong evidence that Russian government hackers are behind a series [of] other cyber-attacks against the Democratic National Committee and other affiliated political organizations.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday October 01 2016, @04:01PM
Do you have Web sites, or computers connected to the Internet? You may find that your important systems are being scanned too. If you see anything suspicious, notify the FBI.
“There’s been a variety of scanning activities as well as some attempted intrusions of voter registration databases beyond those we knew about in July and August,” [FBI Director James] Comey said.
-- http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/09/30/fbi-holds-emergency-meeting-with-florida-officials-over-election-hacking-concerns/ [cbslocal.com]
"This is very different than the vote system in the United States, which is very, very hard for someone to hack into because it's so clunky and dispersed," Comey said [...]
In late June an "unknown actor scanned a state's Board of Election website for vulnerabilities" and, after identifying a security gap, exploited the vulnerability to conduct a "data exfiltration," or unauthorized data transfer, the FBI said in a recent bulletin.
-- https://abcnews.go.com/US/attempts-hack-state-election-systems-detected-fbi-director/story?id=42418303 [go.com]