Malcolm Nance is extremely worried about what might happen as U.S. votes are tallied on Nov. 8, election night. A career U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence official with 33 years of experience, Nance said he had overwhelming evidence that Russia is seeking to interfere in U.S. elections to put “not just a finger, but their whole hand” on the scale to help Republican nominee Donald Trump and hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Nance said a number of private companies had traced cyberattacks exposing potentially damaging Democratic Party emails and voicemails back to cyber “fingerprints” clearly identified in the past as those of Russian state hackers. He said the same fingerprints were found in what turned out to be Russian hacking of power plants in Ukraine and of the German parliament. … U.S. federal investigators believe Russian hackers are also behind cyberattacks on a contractor for Florida’s election system that may have exposed the personal data of Florida voters.
Nance said Russian military intelligence also attempted cyberattacks on voter databases in Illinois and Arizona. Illinois officials said data on about 90,000 people might have been breached, while Arizona officials said they saw no indication that hackers had succeeded in accessing data in their systems. Several states across the country have reported scans of their computer systems, which is often a precursor to a breach.
Nance told VOA he was not worried that Russian agents would attempt to hack into individual voting machines. What he fears is cyber mischief at a state level that could discredit the results.
“It’s far easier to create mayhem and chaos on Election Day by, at the end of the day, going to a state which is controversial, like Florida, Ohio or Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump has said he expects the state to be stolen,” he said.
Full Article: Intelligence Analyst: Russian Cyberattacks Could Roil US Elections.