Tech
Election Systems Breached: Hackers Hit Voter Registration Databases In Arizona, Illinois
uB Muse
First Posted: Aug 30, 2016 05:52 AM EDT
Hackers have breached databases for voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, according to state election and law enforcement officials. "Hackers accessed a database for the Illinois Board of Elections, compromising up to 200,000 personal voter records," states Ken Menzel, General Counsel for the board.
The Illinois attack took place in late July, bringing down the state's voter registration for 10 days and stealing data on as many as 200,000 registered voters. The Arizona attack was less significant, introducing malware into the voter registration system but not successfully stealing any data. According to a flash bulletin obtained by Yahoo News, the FBI is currently investigating digital attacks on voter registration systems in both Arizona and Illinois.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call recently to discuss whether DHS should declare electoral systems as critical infrastructure, which triggers more involvement from the federal government. It has offered to help states increase security of their systems, but states have rebuffed federal help and largely believe their systems are secure.
What was the motive?
Experts believe that there's no way to know if the attacks were attempts to compromise the voting system or simply part of the ongoing efforts of hackers worldwide to harvest information about individuals that can be sold online to criminals looking for identity theft victims. "The voter registration databases are completely separate from the system that vote counting system, so they wouldn't impact one and other. Counting systems typically are not online, whereas the registration system is designed to be online in many states," said Verified Voting's Smith.
"While the systems are separate, it might be possible, though highly labor intensive, to use the voter names and addresses to interfere with an election", said Princeton's Appel. "On election day people wouldn't be allowed to vote who should legitimately be allowed to." Hackers could change voters' addresses, so their registrations would be invalid or at least confused.
Anyone with concerns about the integrity of their voting registration can check it through their local Board of Elections. It's also possible to visit Google's How Do I Vote page to see what options are available in a given state or jurisdiction.
The FBI bulletin does not attribute the two attacks to any particular group, although Yahoo News traces a few pieces of evidence that link the attack to Russia. Certain methods used in the hack overlap with previous attacks linked to Russia, and at least one IP address used in the hack had surfaced previously in cybercrime forums.
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First Posted: Aug 30, 2016 05:52 AM EDT
Hackers have breached databases for voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, according to state election and law enforcement officials. "Hackers accessed a database for the Illinois Board of Elections, compromising up to 200,000 personal voter records," states Ken Menzel, General Counsel for the board.
The Illinois attack took place in late July, bringing down the state's voter registration for 10 days and stealing data on as many as 200,000 registered voters. The Arizona attack was less significant, introducing malware into the voter registration system but not successfully stealing any data. According to a flash bulletin obtained by Yahoo News, the FBI is currently investigating digital attacks on voter registration systems in both Arizona and Illinois.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call recently to discuss whether DHS should declare electoral systems as critical infrastructure, which triggers more involvement from the federal government. It has offered to help states increase security of their systems, but states have rebuffed federal help and largely believe their systems are secure.
What was the motive?
Experts believe that there's no way to know if the attacks were attempts to compromise the voting system or simply part of the ongoing efforts of hackers worldwide to harvest information about individuals that can be sold online to criminals looking for identity theft victims. "The voter registration databases are completely separate from the system that vote counting system, so they wouldn't impact one and other. Counting systems typically are not online, whereas the registration system is designed to be online in many states," said Verified Voting's Smith.
"While the systems are separate, it might be possible, though highly labor intensive, to use the voter names and addresses to interfere with an election", said Princeton's Appel. "On election day people wouldn't be allowed to vote who should legitimately be allowed to." Hackers could change voters' addresses, so their registrations would be invalid or at least confused.
Anyone with concerns about the integrity of their voting registration can check it through their local Board of Elections. It's also possible to visit Google's How Do I Vote page to see what options are available in a given state or jurisdiction.
The FBI bulletin does not attribute the two attacks to any particular group, although Yahoo News traces a few pieces of evidence that link the attack to Russia. Certain methods used in the hack overlap with previous attacks linked to Russia, and at least one IP address used in the hack had surfaced previously in cybercrime forums.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone