In Stunning Reversal, DHS Says Russians Were Not Behind Attempted Wisconsin Vote Hacking
Just in time for the weekend, the Associated Press reported on Friday that the Department of Homeland Security had notified 21 states earlier that day that their election systems had been targeted by malicious cyber actors. The states and DHS quickly jumped to the conclusion that Russia had ordered the cyberattacks, even though it was reported that the identity or identities of the perpetrators were inconclusive Yet, the news spread like wildfire after readers had been primed as reports of possible infiltartion of state election systems had circulated for nearly a year. Even so, for many states, the call Friday from the Department of Homeland Security was the first official confirmation that their election systems had, in fact, been targeted by hackers.
Federal officials said that in most of the 21 states, the targeting was preparatory activity such as scanning computer systems.
But in a stunning reversal – one which we doubt will put endless rumors of Russian cyberinterference to bed – the AP now reports that DHS has told Wisconsin that the Russian government was not involved in the cyber-targeting.
In an email to the state’s deputy elections administrator that was provided to reporters at the Wisconsin Elections Commission meeting on Tuesday, Homeland Security said that initial notice of Russian involvement was made in error. Also, as we noted at the time, the government did not originally assign blame to the Russians when news of the alleged “scanning” initially broke on Friday although most medias jumped at the opportunity to blame Putin.
Infuriated by the error, some state officials said that DHS should provide an expalanation for the errror, or at least issue an apology to state elections officials, who were understandbly unnerved by the news of Russian involvement.
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