Officials in some states are trying to figure out whether local election offices were targeted in an apparent effort by Russian military intelligence to hack into election software last fall. The efforts were detailed in a recently leaked report attributed to the U.S. National Security Agency. North Carolina is checking on whether any local systems were breached, while the revelation prompted an election security review in Virginia. Both are considered presidential battleground states. In Illinois, officials are trying to determine which election offices used software from the contractor that the report said was compromised.
The three are among eight states where election offices had contracts with VR Systems, a Florida-based company that provided software to manage voter registrations. The others are Florida, California, Indiana, New York and West Virginia.
The report, dated last month, asserts that hackers obtained information from company employees and used that to send phishing emails to 122 local election officials just before the election last November in an attempt to break into their systems.
Full Article: Some states review election systems for signs of intrusion.