Two years after Russia’s wave of cyberattacks against American democracy, a Senate committee investigating election interference says those hackers hit more states harder than previously thought. The committee also added that it still doesn’t know with complete certainty exactly how much of U.S. voting infrastructure was compromised. The report summary released this week by the Senate intelligence committee gives an overview of initial findings focused specifically on how Russian government operatives affected U.S. elections systems. The full report is undergoing a review to check for classified information.
… Some of the report’s other findings also are familiar: Russian cyber attackers targeted or scanned the elections systems in at least 21 states, and the Department of Homeland Security was slow in reaching out to the correct officials in those states to let them know.
But the report also says that in at least six of those states, the Russian-affiliated cyber operatives “went beyond scanning and conducted malicious attempts on voting-related websites” — a specific detail that had not been previously reported.
In most of those six instances, the Russian cyber attackers attempted to use a “SQL” injection, which involves using special characters on a public facing website to gain access and either read or manipulate data.
Full Article: Six States Hit Harder By Cyberattacks Than Previously Known, New Report Reveals : NPR.