Analysts with the U.S. intelligence community had evidence showing that seven states were hacked by a covert Russian operation before the 2016 election, according to a report Tuesday.
Websites and databases were targeted, and senior intelligence officials told NBC News that the states in which there were indicators of a breach included Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and Wisconsin.
The report said former President Barack Obama ordered the intelligence report in his final weeks in office and that they pinned down which states had been impacted in January 2017, the same month President Trump was inaugurated.
Some level of warning about foreign interference was given to some states in the run-up to the election, but state officials told NBC News that they were not informed that it originated from Russia.
Despite the hacking, no votes were changed or removed from voter rolls, state and federal officials assured NBC News. The report says six of the seven states that were compromised have denied that they were breached, based on findings from their own investigations. NBC has also reached out to several other states.
The Homeland Security Department later refuted NBC News’ report.
“[NBC News’] reporting tonight on the 2016 elections is not accurate and is actively undermining efforts of @DHSgov to work in close partnership with state and local governments to protect the nation’s election systems from foreign actors,” Tyler Houlton, acting DHS press secretary, said in a series of tweets. “As we have consistently said, DHS has shared information with affected states in a timely manner, and we will continue to do so. We have no intelligence – new or old – that corroborates NBC’s reporting that state systems in 7 states were compromised by Russian government actors.”
Houlton then singled out Bradley Moss, a lawyer with a focus in national security, whom the NBC News report cites as the individual who sued for government documents on the breaches and last week received more than 100 top-secret pages from the intelligence community, according to the report.
“In fact, the formerly classified documents released to Mr. Moss & shown on NBC were working documents based on preliminary information & ongoing investigations, not confirmed and validated intelligence on Russian activities – in any case they do not show what NBC claims they do,” Houlton said. “.@DHSgov has been clear and consistent that we are aware of 21 states targeted by Russian government cyber actors leading up to the 2016 election. In nearly all states, only preparatory activity like scanning was observed.”
“We have said it before & will say it again: in no case is there any evidence that votes were changed or that Russian actors gained access to systems involved in vote tallying. Once again, reports using anonymous, outdated, & incomplete information are being misconstrued as fact,” Houlton added. “We stand by our state and local partners who are working diligently to secure the nation’s election infrastructure in 2018 and beyond.”
Jeanette Manfra, head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News earlier this month that several states’ voter registration rolls were “successfully penetrated” by Russians ahead of the 2016 election. While she acknowledged 21 states had been targeted, she only conceded that “an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.” She did not reveal any further details.
A declassified report from the intelligence community published in January 2017 stated a conclusion with “high confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the meddling campaign on the 2016 election, which included the hacking of Democratic officials and political figures.
The question whether the U.S. has aptly addressed future threats from Russian interference is fast becoming a major concern once again with the approach of the 2018 midterms. Adm. Mike Rogers, who is the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the country is not doing enough to counter the Russian threat and that President Trump has not specifically authorized the U.S. to disrupt Russian cyber operations or head off potential attacks on the 2018 elections.
A number of congressional investigations, along with one run by special counsel Robert Mueller, are looking into the Russian effort to influence the election. Mueller, who is also looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, has so far yielded charges against former Trump associates, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies.
Trump has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt.”
