The Vermont Secretary of State told On Point that in late August hackers used three different methods to attempt to access Vermont’s online voter registration database. One of the attempts came from Russia. “We experienced scans,” Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos said. “Our logs of the system showed where they were coming from. The one that raised our attention, if you want to call it, was the one that said ‘Russian Federation,’ and we forwarded that on to Department of Homeland Security.” None of the attacks were successful. The attempts were first reported by NBC News. Condos revealed the Russian attempt to On Point. The Department of Homeland Security said in an intelligence assessment obtained by NBC News that it’s aware of growing “cyberactivity targeting election infrastructure in 2018. … Numerous actors are regularly targeting election infrastructure, likely for different purposes, including to cause disruptive effects, steal sensitive data and undermine confidence in the election.”
… Hacking attacks were detected in voter registration databases in 21 states, and 39 states election management systems in 2016.
“We’re never going to get the risk of a cyberattack down to zero,” said Marian Schneider, president of Verified Voting, a non-partisan advocacy group calling for greater transparency and verifiability in elections. She told On Point that all computers are vulnerable, “and 99 percent of votes in this country are counted by computers, which is why we need to give election officials the tools they need to demonstrate that the software reported the results accurately.”
Full Article: Vermont Secretary Of State: Hacking Attempt ‘That Said Russian Federation’ Raised Concerns | On Point.