Russians tied to Ariz. voter hack
Officials say counting systems were not compromised
An incident that forced Arizona elections officials to take their voter-registration database down last month was likely triggered by a Russian hacker, who also apparently targeted a similar database in Illinois.
While the breaches did not appear to affect vote-counting systems, they add to concerns that such cyberattacks could exploit the personal data of millions of voters for political or monetary gain.
SAN FRANCISCO A Russian hacker is suspected of probing a voter registration database in Arizona, and another unidentified attacker gained entry to one in Illinois this summer, the FBI said. The agency warned states their election boards should conduct vulnerability scans.
The systems that count votes in elections were not compromised, officials said.
The breaches add to concerns such attacks could exploit the personal history of millions of voters for monetary or political gain. Those worries have run high after reports in July that the Democratic National Committee’s email system was hacked, a breach that U.S. intelligence officials suspect was perpetrated by the Russian government.
“We’re all very aware that it’s less than 80 days before an important election,” said Pamela Smith with Verified Voting, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that advocates for accuracy, transparency and verifiability of elections.
Election officials in Illinois and Arizona told USA TODAY they took their voter registration databases offline briefly last month as they became aware of attempted breaches to their systems.
Matt Roberts, a spokesman for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, said state authorities were notified by the FBI of the suspected hack when it was discovered the username and password of a county election official were circulated online.
The Arizona system was shut down for several days, Roberts said, but there was no evidence that any information related to the 3.4 million voters in the database was compromised.
He said authorities believe the source of the attempted intrusion was a Russian hacker.
Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois Board of Elections, said a “small percentage’’ of its data was accessed during last month’s attack. He said internal security systems detected the intrusion as the data were moved, prompting the shutdown.
Menzel said the attack could not have helped influence the outcome of an election.
In an FBI cyber division alert this month, the agency asked states to contact their Board of Elections and ask whether similar attempts had been made.
The FBI declined to elaborate on the alert, except to say the bureau “routinely advises private industry of various cyber threat indicators observed during the course of our investigations.”
It’s unknown whether the attacks were attempts to compromise the voting system or efforts to harvest information about individuals that can be sold to criminals looking for identity theft victims.