Russia Targeted election systems in 21 states, successfully hacking some

Russia targeted election systems in 21 states, successfully hacking some

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security notified nearly half of the U.S. states that their election systems were targeted by Russia-affiliated hackers in an attempt to influence the 2016 election. In most of the states targeted, the hackers were engaged in preliminary activities like scanning. In other states hackers attempted to infiltrate systems and failed, but in a small selection of states, with only Illinois confirmed so far, the election systems were compromised successfully.

According to Homeland Security, none of these attempts were aimed at the systems that actually tabulate the votes themselves. At least 21 states were the focus on these hacking attempts, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington, as confirmed by the Associated Press and the states themselves.

In a message to election officials in the state of Wisconsin, Homeland Security specified that the hack was conducted by “Russian government cyber actors.” The agency first confirmed the state-level hacking attempts toward the 21 states in June, informing the Senate Intelligence Committee. At that time, the states targeted by the operation were not made public.