Silke Jasso
A leaked National Security Agency report reveals that Illinois, along with seven other states, is investigating the possibility that Russia hacked into its elections.
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The report, which was received by The Intercept, explains how Russian military intelligence infiltrated the company that made the election software used in eight states, according to WGN. According to the report, Russian hackers sent spoof emails to employees of an unnamed U.S. election software company. While the company is unnamed, there are references to a product made by VR Systems, a Florida-based vendor of electronic voting services and equipment.
The report says,
Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors […] executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. […] The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to […] launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.
No conclusions have been drawn as of yet on whether or not the attempt successfully interfered with voting results, but VR Systems software was used in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Only one county in Illinois used this software, according to WGN. Despite this, Homeland Security believes Illinois was hit the worst in regard to voter registration systems which are also believed to have been hacked by Russia.
The NSA continues to inform that not much is known about the attacks and the Russian government still denies involvement. Last week alone, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that Russia had interfered in foreign elections saying “We never engaged in that on a state level, and have no intention of doing so.”
