WASHINGTON — The U.S. Intelligence community found substantial evidence that state websites or voter registration systems were compromised by operatives within the Russian community prior to the 2016 presidential election, but did not alert the states affected who was behind them.
NBC News reported the widespread compromise was first discovered by President Barack Obama during his final weeks in office, which found that seven states were the victims of Russian operative hacking. Senior intelligence officials told NBC News those seven states were Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin.
Illinois state officials said they detected a "malicious cyberattack" during the summer of 2016, just months out from the election. The attack was reported to DHS, mentioning the breach of voter rolls although nothing had been altered. They remain the only U.S. state to "acknowledge actual compromise," reported NBC News.
Intelligence officials said the systems in those affected states were compromised in various ways, including entry into state websites to the penetration of voter registration databases. However, sources told NBC News some of the breaches were considered more serious than others.
Several of the states affected by the compromise were informed as such by officials in Washington during the lead up to the November election, but none were told the Russian government was behind the hijackings. State and federal officials told NBC News that no votes were changed during the hackings, nor were any voters removed from their systems.
NBC News contacted each of the seven states referred to by the intelligence community, as well as 14 other states mentioned as probed during the election by the Department of Homeland Security. Six of the seven states told NBC they denied being breached by a foreign entity, citing findings from their own cyber investigations.
Last September, the DHS discovered 21 U.S. states were targeted by Russian interference, adding that some of those attempts were successful. It's that reason, intelligence officials said, future attacks from the Russian government are expected amid nationwide elections.
"We've got to fix that right away, because it does us no good, [when somebody is] sitting in Washington D.C., with a bit of information about a significant cyberthreat and election officials and locals are completely unaware," said Alex Padilla, California's secretary of state, to NBC News. "That doesn't help anybody and that needs to be addressed."
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement it has been working with state and local officials throughout the country for more than a year to help prevent similar attacks from happening again.
"This relationship is built on trust and transparency, and we have prioritized sharing threat and mitigation information with election officials in a timely manner to help them protect their systems," DHS acting press secretary Tyler Houlton said.
The midterm elections will be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
