Officials: Russian hackers targeted Arizona, Illinois election systems

"I Voted" stickers.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

A spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R) said Monday that the FBI told state officials in June that Russians were behind a hack targeting the Arizona voter registration system.

The spokesman, Matt Roberts, told The Washington Post the FBI said the threat was "an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10." Reagan shut down the system for almost a week, and investigators determined that the hackers did not compromise any state or county systems, but did get the user name and password of an elections official in Gila County. Roberts said the FBI did not say if the hackers were part of the Russian government.

In July, Illinois officials also found that hackers were able to get into their election systems, The Post reports. No data was altered, but they were able to retrieve "a fairly small percentage of the total" of voter records, said Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois elections board. After notifying the FBI, state officials closed the voter registration system down for a week. "I'm less concerned about the attackers getting access to and downloading the information," Brian Kalkin, vice president of operations for the Center for Internet Security, told The Post. "I'm more concerned about the information being altered, modified, or deleted. That's where the real potential is for any sort of meddling in the election."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.