Russian interference in U.S. institutions reaches further than the interference in the election infrastructure in 2016 and requires a strong strategy to counter a sustained effort by that country to undermine the integrity of the vote, former DHS leaders told a congressional task force. Russian probes and alleged attempted hacks of state election systems in the last election are “a wake up call” for upcoming state and congressional elections in 2018, former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told House Democrats on the Election Security Task Force in a Sept. 28 public meeting. House Democrats created the Election Security Task Force in June to study ways to keep Russian interference out of 2018 elections. While Johnson told the panel that he found no evidence that Russian probes of state systems, including voter registration systems, altered ballots or election results, he said those efforts “exposed cyber vulnerabilities.”
Johnson said that as his department initially uncovered the Russian probes he worried about the ramifications. “Last year, when we saw these voter registration databases being targeted, I was very worried it was the run-up to a huge catastrophic attack,” that would result in the deletion of voter registration information, he said. “We were very worried about that and we continue to worry about the ability of bad cyber actors to compromise voter registration data.”
The feared catastrophic attack didn’t materialize, but Johnson said the fate of national elections still can rest on key precincts in key states. Elections can “dance on the head of a pin,” he said. “If writers of the TV series ‘House of Cards’ can figure that out, then a lot of other people could do the same.”
Full Article: Former DHS chief feared catastrophic attack on election systems — FCW.