Last week, Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that a dozen Russians were indicted for hacking offenses tied to the 2016 presidential elections. In addition to the indictments, Rosenstein asserted that Russian intelligence officers stole information on approximately 500,000 voters from a hacked state election board website. Illinois previously disclosed that it notified 76,000 residents that they may have had their voter registration data viewed by the attackers. And although the Illinois State Board of Elections is not specifically mentioned in Rosenstein’s speech nor in the grand jury indictment issued by the DOJ, the Illinois State Board of Elections believes the reference relates to it. “As far as we know, we are the only state that experienced an actual breach, which is why we stated that we believe we are the ‘SBOE 1’ referred to in Count 11, paragraph 72 [of the indictment],” Matt Dietrich, public information officer for the Illinois State Board of Elections, told Government Technology.
Twenty-one states were hit with attempted election-related cyberattacks in 2016. But most of these attempts were unsuccessful, with states only getting scanned for potential vulnerabilities, according to 2017 transcripts from a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.
“In the vast majority of those states targeted in 2016, only preparatory activity like scanning occurred, and in no case was the data actually changed or manipulated. None of the targeted systems were connected to the counting of votes,” a law enforcement representative told Government Technology.
Full Article: Hacked Voter Records in Illinois Soar to Half a Million.