At least two state election databases may have already been infiltrated by hackers this year, according to an alert from the FBI.
The confidential “need to know” alert was distributed to election officials around the country, according to a report from Yahoo News. The alert, titled “Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems,” said at least one of the intrusions had resulted in the successful exfiltration of voter data.
The intruders targeted voter registration databases in Arizona, where the hackers failed to gain access to sensitive data, and Illinois, where they obtained personal data on 200,000 state voters.
Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer for ThreatConnect, said one of the eight IP addresses hackers used had been seen in online Russian criminal forums. According to the FBI, at least one has never been seen before.
The revelation comes just weeks after Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson spoke with state election officials on the issue of election cybersecurity. Johnson told reporters this month that he hoped to increase the federal government’s role in fending off hackers for the country’s roughly 9,000 electoral jurisdictions.
The finding follows a summer discovery that hackers penetrated the networks of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Those breaches reportedly came in addition to hacks of the nonprofit Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s presidential campaign. Perpetrators behind the attacks have been traced to the Russian government on more than one occasion, though U.S. officials have not publicly attributed responsibility.
