The actor responsible for cyberattacks against state and local election systems remains unknown to federal officials, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Wednesday, distinguishing the issue from breaches of the Democratic National Committee and related entities.
“It is the case that we face in this country an increasing level of sophistication in terms of cybersecurity attacks from a range of actors, nation-states, criminals, hacktivists,” Johnson said at a forum hosted by The Atlantic.
“[E]verybody knows what happened with the DNC and some other related things. We’ve seen a limited number of attempts at intrusions into the online presence of state election officials,” Johnson said. “Exactly who did it, we haven’t been able to determine yet.
“But it does highlight the need for state and local election officials to be prepared and look for any potential vulnerabilities in their systems, and that’s what the department of Homeland Security is able to provide by way of assistance, if they ask,” Johnson added, noting 19 states to date have requested cybersecurity assistance from the feds.
The statement came after an acknowledgment from FBI Director James Comey Wednesday that attacks had increased following the summer disclosure that systems in Illinois and Arizona had been targeted.
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“There have been a variety of scanning activities, which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities, as well as some attempted intrusions at voter registration databases beyond those we knew about in July and August,” Comey told a panel of the House Judiciary Committee. “There’s no doubt that some bad actors have been poking around.”
Asked whether hackers could manipulate election results, Johnson said a decentralized voting system and state election officials should be able to deter the threat, provided they follow the appropriate processes.
“Because the way the systems work, they have the ability to audit, they have a backup. Let’s say you email in an election return, you should also have a paper record as well, so if the election system went down, you can communicate it by another means.
“It would be difficult, in our judgment, to alter a ballot count,” Johnson said.
