DHS Officials: Russia Likely Tried to Hack All 50 States in 2016, Threat to Election Systems Still High
As the 2018 midterm elections draw closer and closer, top officials from the Department of Homeland Security are warning Americans that Russia may launch a new series of cyber-attacks against the country.
Even though the government hasn’t picked up on any Russian cyber warfare against America’s election systems in recent months, officials have warned that there are “potential vulnerabilities” in voter databases, and that the threat level to state systems “remains high.” ABC News reports that DHS Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra spoke to lawmakers on Tuesday and confirmed that Russia’s interference campaign targeted every U.S. state during the 2016 election.
“Two years ago the Russian government launched a brazen, multi-faceted influence campaign aimed at undermining public faith in our democratic process, generally and our election specifically,” Manfra said. “That campaign involved cyber espionage, public disclosure of stolen data, cyber intrusions at the state and local voter registration systems, online propaganda, and more. We cannot let it happen again.”
Manfra was one of several DHS officials who appeared before the Senate Homeland Security Committee today to answer questions regarding how to prevent foreign election meddling. During the proceedings, Manfra was grilled by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) after the ranking Democrat accused the DHS of misleading the public about the size and scale of the 2016 Russian cyber-campaign.
From ABC:
DHS officials have repeatedly said they detected “scanning” – when hackers scan a target for security gaps –- in 21 states.
But McCaskill noted that in the run-up the 2016 election, only about half of states had the tools needed to detect such scanning, and DHS was only publicly cited the number of states where that scanning was detected.
“The impression that was given at the time is that we had knowledge that 21 states were [targeted] and the assumption was that the remaining states were not,” McCaskill said. “But in fact that is an incorrect assumption.”
“We really don’t have an idea how many states that Russia tried to hack,” McCaskill insisted.
In response, Manfra acknowledged Russian hackers likely tried to hack into all 50 states. “We can absolutely make the assumption that more would have been targeted,” she said.
[Image via Wikimedia]
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