Concerns over the cybersecurity of November’s election and potential foreign interference took a turn for the troubling on Monday with reports that the FBI is investigating suspected foreign attempts to hack state election computer systems. Attempts to break into voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona have prompted the FBI to warn states to increase their cybersecurity measures.
Here’s more from the Washington Post:
The [FBI] told Arizona officials that the threat was “credible” and severe, ranking as “an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10,” said Matt Roberts, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office. As a result, Secretary of State Michele Reagan shut down the state voter registration system for almost a week. It turned out that the hackers did not succeed in compromising the state system or even any county system, but rather had managed to steal the user name and password for one Gila County elections official…
In Illinois, officials discovered an intrusion into their state voter registration system in July… Although the hackers did not alter any data, the intrusion into the Illinois database marks the first successful compromise of a state election database, federal officials said.
The Arizona intrusion has been linked to Russian hackers and following the DNC hack earlier this year has again raised questions about efforts to meddle with the election.
