FBI: Foreign Hackers Breached 2 State Election Databases

[zenkai]

Source

Voter registration bases in Arizona and Illinois were believed to have been breached in recent weeks by foreign hackers, prompting the FBI to issue a warning for all states to beef up their efforts to safeguard their voter registration systems, Yahoo News reported Monday.

The site obtained a copy of the restricted “flash” alert sent out by the FBI’s Cyber Division, dated Aug. 18, which warned of cyber criminals targeting state elections systems and asked officials to search for similar malicious activity. The alert did not name the states involved, but an anonymous source confirmed to Yahoo that the alert was related to attacks on databases in Arizona and Illinois.

Illinois officials were forced to shutter the state’s voter registration system for 10 days in late July after hackers were able to download the personal data of up to 200,000 voters, Ken Menzel, general counsel for the state’s Board of Elections, told Yahoo's Michael Isikoff.

The Arizona attack was more limited in scope, according to the report. Malicious software was introduced into the registration system, but an anonymous state official told Yahoo no voter data was stolen.

The threat was deemed serious enough for Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to hold a conference call with state elections officials on Aug. 15, where he reportedly offered his department’s assistance in fortifying the systems and federal cyber security experts to search for vulnerabilities in states’ voting systems.

Although Johnson said on the call that he was not aware of “specific or credible cybersecurity threats,” the FBI alert went out three days later, according to the report.

In the alert, the FBI listed eight IP addresses as the sources of the Arizona and Illinois attacks, noting that one of the addresses was involved in both attacks. Rich Barger, a cyber security expert at the firm ThreatConnect, told Yahoo that one of the IP addresses has previously surfaced in Russian hacker forums and the method for intrusion resembled the methods used in other attacks suspect to have been carried out by state-sponsored Russian hackers.

Menzel, the Illinois elections official, told Yahoo that the FBI did not identify the suspected foreign hackers by country.

The news comes shortly after the FBI confirmed it was investigating cyber attacks at the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which experts have attributed to Russian government-linked hackers.

This could potentially be a huge problem in November.

[cubby]

This is extremely disturbing news. Trumps ties with Russia are already extremely clear. If they can hack a few battleground states to sway the count, we're fucked. As Stalin once said:

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.

Putin might be the next modern Stalin, and he would like nothing more than to see his little minion running the United States. Do you all remember how Trump kept winning primaries even when the polls said he wouldn't - in some cases by a lot?

[Damajin]

This is extremely disturbing news. Trumps ties with Russia are already extremely clear. If they can hack a few battleground states to sway the count, we're fucked. As Stalin once said:



Putin might be the next modern Stalin, and he would like nothing more than to see his little minion running the United States. Do you all remember how Trump kept winning primaries even when the polls said he wouldn't - in some cases by a lot?

And Hillary's ties with Saudi Arabia and other areas are already extremely clear. The automatic assumption that it's Russia doing this for Trump is hysterical.

This situation is shitty, but taking it at face value and not assuming there's more onion layers to the cloak and dagger shit than there is isn't wise. In this world there's too many cases of multiplicious actors and agents in these things.

[cubby]

And Hillary's ties with Saudi Arabia and other areas are already extremely clear. The automatic assumption that it's Russia doing this for Trump is hysterical.

Lol, you crack me up. Can't even you put the obvious ties together? Russia hacked state election centers. Trump has several ties to Russia. Trump is running for President, in which the state election centers will play a pivotal role. You get it now? Hillary's ties to SA are irrelevant in this situation.

[Theodarzna]

Trump is a Russian collaborator. Time for the CIA to step in and to take care of him.

hmmmmmm, yes all people accused of being "collaborators," by official sources should just be assassinated. I am sure nothing bad will come of that.

[cubby]

They hacked the public facing voter information systems. They didn't hack the actual voting machines that will be used in the election. Illinois has virtually no chance of going Trump, so to think hackers are going to alter the election.

Where do you think the voting machine information is sent to be tallied? Please don't ignore the forest for the trees, ok?

Though if your concerned about voter integrity, maybe support requiring more than a cell phone bill to vote?

Yeah, I'm not sure you understand the complete illegitimacy of voter fraud concern in the United States.

[Deleted]

Trump is a Russian collaborator. Time for the CIA to step in and to take care of him.

Your mind is protected!

[monkmastaeq]

Hillary's dirty money able to buy top shelf hackers, doesn't surprise me

[Theodarzna]

Hey, once he's gone they can't bring him back. :P

Power is a nasty game sometimes.

I think I point to bad precedent of the establishment cooking up reasons to purge undesirables from society. As a Historian I can tell you a very fascinating tale about all the various instances that went rather awry.

[GennGreymane]

Oh dang

Zenkai is woke AF!

OT: We reaallly need better cyber security.

[Theodarzna]

Your mind is protected!

And in such strange times, Liberals will champion CIA assassination!

[Belize]

Trump DID invite them to hack into the servers... It isn't polite to refuse an invitation.

[kail]

This is extremely disturbing news. Trumps ties with Russia are already extremely clear. If they can hack a few battleground states to sway the count, we're fucked. As Stalin once said:



Putin might be the next modern Stalin, and he would like nothing more than to see his little minion running the United States. Do you all remember how Trump kept winning primaries even when the polls said he wouldn't - in some cases by a lot?

Even I find that a bit much. This is just one country screwing another.

[cubby]

Even I find that a bit much. This is just one country screwing another.

Trump's former campaign manager (who just left like a week ago) has extraordinary ties to Russia. Russia is hacking the United States voting systems. Trump is running for President. The United States uses said hacked voting systems to choose said president. The links are not long and fairly straightforward. I grant you it's perhaps bold, but nothing Putin would shy away from.

[twelvethirty]

paper
pen
???

[Damajin]

Lol, you crack me up. Can't even you put the obvious ties together? Russia hacked state election centers. Trump has several ties to Russia. Trump is running for President, in which the state election centers will play a pivotal role. You get it now? Hillary's ties to SA are irrelevant in this situation.

What obvious ties? No official blame was placed, why are you jumping to conclusions? Moreover there is a big push in the US governmental structure to find things to blame Russia on, so without being an apologist for them and being completely willing to trash them to shit if they're actually the ones doing it(as our voting integrity is of paramount importance in a Constitutional Republic) I'd rather wait and see who gets blamed for this, what proof there is and the rest of the actual details. It'd be quite entertaining if this hacking actually boosted up Hillary's vote total, what would you be saying then?

It's amusing that when people were trashing Hillary for the email server or Benghazi that the 'obvious ties' line was totally shit on by her supporters and those cautiously neutral, yet here you are bringing it out and polishing it up for this. Pretty weak altogether.

Hillary's ties to Saudi Arabia and other parts of the authoritarian world are never irrelevant.

[cubby]

What obvious ties? No official blame was placed, why are you jumping to conclusions? Moreover there is a big push in the US governmental structure to find things to blame Russia on, so without being an apologist for them and being completely willing to trash them to shit if they're actually the ones doing it(as our voting integrity is of paramount importance in a Constitutional Republic) I'd rather wait and see who gets blamed for this, what proof there is and the rest of the actual details. It'd be quite entertaining if this hacking actually boosted up Hillary's vote total, what would you be saying then?

I can only go by what facts tell us - you making up "big pushes in governmental structure[s]" is much more far fetched and completely unfounded. Trump's just recently fired campaign manager - that's the obvious tie to Russia.

Not sure why you're attacking my integrity - regardless of who it benefits, hacking/altering the voting systems is horrific.

- - - Updated - - -

Factual update: from investigators:

The breaches are causing concern among election officials because of the voter personal information that could have been stolen, not because of any fear that an election could be stolen, law enforcement officials say.

Looks like the breach may have been just another personal information hunt rather than an election hijacking.

source

[Damajin]

I can only go by what facts tell us - you making up "big pushes in governmental structure[s]" is much more far fetched and completely unfounded. Trump's just recently fired campaign manager - that's the obvious tie to Russia.

Not sure why you're attacking my integrity - regardless of who it benefits, hacking/altering the voting systems is horrific.

What facts? The article gives none. You're assuming the Russians did it, because of Trump's recently fired campaign manager.

What about Hillary's ties to Russia? As Sec. of State she did greenlight the acquisition by a Russian company of another company engaged in an insanely large amount of uranium mining/production, of course after said Russian company made huge donations to the Clinton Foundation. In fact her ties to Russia are far more lucrative and deeper than anything Trump has going on.

I'm not attacking your integrity, I'm attacking your reasoning. IP addresses showing up in a Russian hacker forum is the kind of shit that gullible people immediately fall for. Pretty easy for smart hackers to redirect IPs around and also conveniently end up using Russian hacker forums if the goal is to blame Russia. There's far too much noise going on about starting shit up again with Russia for anyone with a brain not to be suspicious of any immediate effort to tie them to something, as that's exactly the type of covert shit that the CIA/FBI exist for, and that's not me making up anything in our US governmental structure at all.

[cubby]

What facts? The article gives none. You're assuming the Russians did it, because of Trump's recently fired campaign manager.

If you're not going to be bothered to actually read an article you're commenting on, I really don't know why any of us should waste our time responding to your bullshit. The article specifically links some of the IP addresses used to previous Russian hacks.

What about Hillary's ties to Russia? As Sec. of State she did greenlight the acquisition by a Russian company of another company engaged in an insanely large amount of uranium mining/production, of course after said Russian company made huge donations to the Clinton Foundation. In fact her ties to Russia are far more lucrative and deeper than anything Trump has going on.

I wasn't aware of this - could you link a couple of sources (not questioning you, sincerely curious).

(and please don't be the guy who asks me to verify your claims)

I'm not attacking your integrity, I'm attacking your reasoning. IP addresses showing up in a Russian hacker forum is the kind of shit that gullible people immediately fall for. Pretty easy for smart hackers to redirect IPs around and also conveniently end up using Russian hacker forums if the goal is to blame Russia. There's far too much noise going on about starting shit up again with Russia for anyone with a brain not to be suspicious of any immediate effort to tie them to something, as that's exactly the type of covert shit that the CIA/FBI exist for, and that's not me making up anything in our US governmental structure at all.

My reasoning is based on the FACTS provided by the article. Your reasoning is based on supposition and a decided lack of facts. How are you not having a problem with your own reasoning, based on your own statements?

- - - Updated - - -

And this, folks, is why we can't vote easily from our homes. We have to go out to do it.

Lol, good point. They are pushing voting by mail for the entire country.

[Naxere]

Trump's former campaign manager (who just left like a week ago) has extraordinary ties to Russia. Russia is hacking the United States voting systems. Trump is running for President. The United States uses said hacked voting systems to choose said president. The links are not long and fairly straightforward. I grant you it's perhaps bold, but nothing Putin would shy away from.

I thought conspiracy theories weren't allowed on this forum.