14 DAY TRIAL // FBI Director James Comey told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, September 28, that his agency detected attempts to hack several voter registration systems in more than a dozen states.
Director Comey was present at the House Judiciary Committee hearing to provide more details about an alert his agency sent out to the State Board of Elections across the US.
The alert, sent in June, warned of possible cyber-attacks against voter registration databases.
More attacks after FBI issued a flash alert on the topic
A Yahoo report claimed that hackers had successfully broken into the voter registration system of the Illinois Board of Elections, from where they stole details for 200,000 US voters. The report also claimed the hackers tried to penetrate the system of the Arizona Board of Elections.
Detailing what has happened since that alert, Director Comey told the Committee that "There have been a variety of scanning activities which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities, as well as some attempted intrusions at voter database registrations beyond those we knew about in July and August."
"We are urging the states just to make sure that their deadbolts are thrown and their locks are on and to get the best information they can from DHS, just to make sure their systems are secure [...] because there's no doubt that some bad actors have been poking around," he also added.
The Director declined to name the states that suffered the cyber-attacks, but said the hackers targeted more than a dozen states. He also said that the US voting system was not in danger since most of it is not connected to the Internet, but voter registration databases are.
Russians suspected, as always
A report released by ThreatConnect in September pinned the attacks on a Russian cyber-espionage group, also suspected of attacking Ukraine's power grid, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS/CAS), the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
The full House Judiciary Committee on FBI Oversight meeting is available below. Director Comey's comments are 1 hour 57 minutes into the video.
