Watch for cyberhacking, FBI tells election boards
WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating a series of suspected foreign hacks of state election computer systems and websites, and has warned states to be on the alert for intrusions.
The Aug. 18 warning, issued after two states sustained intrusions into their systems, comes amid heightened concern over Russian hacks of Democratic party organizations and possible meddling in the presidential election.
The FBI “flash” alert, which is not intended for general public release, listed Internet Protocol addresses and other technical fingerprints associated with the hacks.
“The FBI is requesting that states contact their Board of Elections and determine if any similar activity to their logs, both inbound and outbound, has been detected,” said the FBI alert, which was first reported by Yahoo News.
The warning did not name the states that were targeted.
In Arkansas, Chris Powell, spokesman for Secretary of State Mark Martin, said his office has had “no indications of this kind of activity in Arkansas” but that it is “monitoring news reports closely.”
Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona in recent months.
In June, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office shut down part of its website after the FBI found a threat to its state voter registration system, according to The Arizona Republic. The FBI informed Arizona officials that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state.
Yet it turned out that the hackers had neither compromised the state system nor any county system. They had, however, stolen the user name and password of a single elections official in Gila County.
Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, said Monday that FBI investigators have not specified whether the hackers were Russian criminals or employed by the Russian government. Bureau officials on Monday declined to comment.
In July, the Illinois Voter Registration System suffered a cyberintrusion in which hackers were able to retrieve a number of voter records, according to a message from the Illinois State Board of Elections. Although the hackers did not alter any data, the intrusion marked the first successful compromise of a state voter- registration database, federal officials said.
The intrusion led the state election board to shut down the voter registration system for a week.
“This was a highly sophisticated attack most likely from a foreign [ international] entity,” Kyle Thomas, the Illinois board’s director of voting and registration systems, said in the message.
The FBI has told Illinois officials that it is looking at foreign government agencies and criminal hackers as potential culprits, said Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois elections board.
At least two other states are looking into possible breaches, officials said.
Private- sector researchers are also concerned about meddling by Russians in the U. S. elections system.
Rich Barger, chief information officer at ThreatConnect, said that several of the IP addresses trace back to a website hosting service called King Servers that offers Russia- based technical support. He also said that one of the methods used was very similar to a method used in other intrusions suspected of being carried out by the Russian government, including one this month on the World Anti- Doping Agency.
The reported intrusions so far do not appear to have involved manipulation of data — a key concern of U. S. intelligence officials.
But, Barger said, “the very fact that [ someone] has rattled the doorknobs, the very fact that the state election commissions are in the crosshairs gives grounds to the average American voter to wonder — can they really trust the results?”