Election Systems of 21 States Hacked Russia Targeted Again Us
Homeland Security official: Russian government actors tried to hack ballot systems in 21 states
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's names are printed on a ballot on a voting machine to exist used in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Matt Zapotosky
People connected to the Russian regime tried to hack election-related reckoner systems in 21 states, a Section of Homeland Security official testified Wednesday.
Samuel Liles, the Department of Homeland Security'southward acting director of the Office of Intelligence and Assay Cyber Partitioning, said vote-tallying mechanisms were unaffected and that the hackers appeared to exist scanning for vulnerabilities — which Liles likened to walking down the street and looking at homes to see who might be within.
But hackers successfully exploited a "small number" of networks, Liles said, likening the act to making it through a home'south front end door.
[Russian hackers targeted Arizona ballot system]
Liles was testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia's efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, and his remarks add some clarity to the breadth of the Kremlin'due south cyber mischief. Officials in Arizona and Illinois had previously confirmed that hackers targeted their voter registration system, though news reports suggested the Russian effort was much broader.
Bloomberg reported earlier this calendar month that Russian hackers "striking" systems in 39 states, and the Intercept, citing a classified intelligence certificate, reported that Russian armed services intelligence "executed a cyberattack on at least 1 U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November'due south presidential election."
In a separate hearing before the Business firm Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, former Section of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson testified that Russia'due south meddling, directed by President Vladimir Putin, was "unprecedented, the scale and the telescopic of what we saw them doing." The testimony came a day later White House printing secretary Sean Spicer said at a briefing he did not know whether President Trump believes Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential ballot.
In addition to scanning voting systems for vulnerabilities, U.S. intelligence committees accept said Russian hackers caused and engineered the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.
"In retrospect, information technology would take been easy for me to say I should have brought a sleeping pocketbook and camped out in front of the DNC in the tardily summer," Johnson testified. He said the severity of Russian federation'southward efforts persuaded him to sign onto an Oct. seven statement publicly blaming the Kremlin for what had happened, even though doing and so could have been perceived equally "taking sides" or "challenging the integrity of the election itself."
"My view is that we needed to do information technology, and we needed to do information technology well before the election to inform American voters of what we saw," Johnson said. He added: "I think the larger issue is it did not get the public attention that it should have, because the aforementioned day the press was focused on the release of the Access Hollywood video." That video showed Trump bragging about kissing and groping women.
Officials declined to say which 21 states were targeted or place those that actually had data — such as voter registration lists — removed from their systems. Jeanette Manfra, the interim deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications, said she could non do and so because information technology was of import to protect the confidentiality of those victimized.
FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap testified Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russians too pushed faux news reports and propaganda online, using amplifiers to spread their message. He said Russia for years has tried to influence U.Due south. elections but that the "scale" and "aggressiveness" of its efforts in 2016 made the attempts more meaning.
"The Net has immune Russian federation to do then much more today than they've ever been able to do in the past," Priestap said. He said Russia's goal was to "sow discord" in the Us and to "denigrate" Clinton and assistance Trump.
Johnson suggested that in the aftermath of the hacking, the federal government should "encourage a compatible ready of minimum standards for cybersecurity when it comes to state elections arrangement and voter registration databases."
But he best-selling that doing so might be a heavy elevator, given that country election officials are naturally suspicious of what he called a "federal takeover" of their ballot practices.
"Land election officials are very sensitive nigh what they perceive to exist federal intrusion into their process," Johnson said, noting that he oftentimes encountered officials pushing dorsum and arguing that "it's our procedure, our responsibility."
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/homeland-security-official-russian-government-actors-potentially-tried-to-hack-election-systems-in-21-states/2017/06/21/33bf31d4-5686-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html
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