Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump announced over the weekend that his “grassroots organization” team intends to recruit hundred of volunteers to monitor polling stations for evidence of “vote fraud.”
But if Trump wants to keep the election from being, in his words, “rigged,” he may want to reach out to more tech experts and fewer poll watchers. A large-scale study showed that physical vote manipulation (including voter impersonation) is extremely rare. But, according to the FBI, foreign hackers seem to be targeting electronic voting systems in at least two states, reportedly Arizona and Illinois.
The hacks were what the FBI has labeled “exfiltration” attacks, designed to steal voter registration data. In Illinois, hackers managed to grab 200,000 voter registration files before authorities could stop them. In Arizona, according to reports, hackers didn’t get that far—they only managed to introduce malware into the voter data collection system.
The FBI has warned election officials across the country after it says it intercepted several foreign hacking efforts aimed at state election systems. The FBI’s Cyber Division even sent out a “flash” alert, telling election administrators that they think the hacks may be Russian state-sponsored.
Homeland Security is also apparently involved. After the FBI’s alert went out, Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson convened a massive conference call designed to put election officials across the country on the same page when it comes to hacking. The government wants to make sure basic systems are in place to prevent real-time vote-hacking efforts.
The FBI seems to also be monitoring Russian hacker collectives, and was able to identify one of the IP addresses involved in a state-level hack as being associated with those collectives.