Florida Governor Says Russian Hackers Breached 2 Counties In 2016

Enlarge this image toggle caption Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images

Russian hackers breached the systems of two county elections systems in Florida in 2016, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday at a news conference. DeSantis said no data were tampered with and vote tallies were not affected.

The intrusions, which had not ever been publicly confirmed, were first disclosed in special counsel Robert Mueller's report about Russian interference in the 2016 election last month.

"I recently met with the FBI concerning the election issue mentioned in the Mueller report," DeSantis said. "Two Florida counties experienced intrusion into the supervisor of election networks. There was no manipulation."

DeSantis said he could not disclose which counties' networks were compromised, but he said the voter data that the attackers gained access to was already public.

"Nothing that affected the vote count," DeSantis said.

One sentence in the Mueller report prompted DeSantis' meeting with the FBI: "We understand the FBI believes that this operation enabled [Russian military intelligence] to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government" during the 2016 election.

The mention that Russian hackers had accessed Florida networks came as a surprise to many in the state.

"I haven't heard even a whisper" about such a breach, said Paul Lux, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections in an interview with NPR last month.

To break into the Florida elections systems, the Russian hackers used a spear-phishing campaign, where they used email addresses designed to look like a voting system vendor to trick the election officials into giving them access to their networks.

A leaked document from the National Security Agency in 2017 identified the company as Florida-based VR Systems.

The campaign was detailed in an indictment filed last summer by Mueller's office:

In or around November 2016 and prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, KOVALEV and his co-conspirators used an email account designed to look like a Vendor 1 email address to send over 100 spearphishing emails to organizations and personnel involved in administering elections in numerous Florida counties. The spearphishing emails contained malware that the Conspirators embedded into Word documents bearing Vendor 1's logo.

Last year, former Florida Sen. Bill Nelson warned that Russia had "penetrated" Florida's voter registration systems, but election officials denied that vehemently at the time.

Then-Gov. Rick Scott, who defeated Nelson in the Senate race, decried Nelson's claims and said they "only serve to erode public trust in our elections at a critical time." </s> The Mueller report confirmed at least one Florida elections office was compromised by Russia during the 2016 vote.

This Thursday the FBI will hold a classified briefing with members of the Florida congressional delegation to discuss the hacking.

Former Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho told the Florida Roundup why the FBI has not been transparent.

“The FBI actually lied to the 67 supervisors of elections and the secretary of state staff that was on that call,” said Sancho.

“The penetration had already taken place, but the FBI did not want to inform the Russians and so they didn’t inform us.”

According to Politico, Governor Ron DeSantis is also expected to meet with the FBI.

Last month DeSantis expressed frustration that Florida officials didn’t know more about the incident. </s> Florida finds familiar territory with allegations of voter fraud and accusations of voter suppression dashing between Republicans and Democrats as the state prepares for an election recount.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner on Saturday ordered a machine recount, which includes three key races: Florida governor, Florida agriculture commissioner and U.S. Senate.

"Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!" President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday after the recount was announced.

Trump on Friday said that Broward County "miraculously started finding Democrat votes" after Democrats sent Marc Elias – "their best Election stealing lawyer."

"Don’t worry, Florida - I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!" Trump wrote.

Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate who in the first unofficial results was ahead of Andrew Gillum by a margin of 0.41 percent, released a video statement on Saturday in which he said he was preparing to serve as Florida's governor

DeSantis – described in the video as the "governor-elect" – said Florida voters chose him to lead, citing "clear and unambiguous" results.

"It is important that everyone involved in the election process strictly adhere to the rule of law, which is the foundation for our nation. Since the election a few days ago, we have begun our transition efforts to build an administration that can secure Florida's future," DeSantis said. "With the election behind us, it's now time to come together as a state as we prepare to serve all Floridians."

Rick Scott's campaign spokesman, Chris Hartline, released a statement in which he said Scott won a "close but decisive victory" with a 0.15 percent margin.

"It’s time for Senator Nelson to accept reality and spare the state of ... Florida the time, expense and discord of a recount," Hartline wrote.

Matt Caldwell, the Republican candidate for Florida agriculture commissioner, said he filed a lawsuit against Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes to "hold her accountable, follow Florida law and uphold the integrity of our elections."

Though Caldwell was initially leading on Election Day, Democratic candidate Nikki Fried surpassed Caldwell in the first unofficial results and holds a lead of 0.06 percent.

Despite accusations of wasting taxpayer dollars and voter fraud, Democrats are not backing down and are even suggesting or outright accusing Republicans of attempts to suppress votes.

"I am replacing my earlier concession with an unapologetic and uncompromised call to count every vote," Gillum said in a press conference.

"This process is about one thing: making sure every legal ballot is counted and protecting the right of every Floridian to participate in our democracy," Nelson wrote on Twitter.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., who endorsed and campaigned with Gillum, also called for every vote to be counted.

"No surprise. Law enforcement says Rick Scott’s allegation of voter fraud was not based in reality. He and Trump are just trying to undermine the results if he loses," Sanders wrote on Twitter.

Soon after the first unofficial results were released, Fried said that her campaign was "confident that once the votes were counted we would win the Agriculture Commissioner race!"

"Now that the deadline has come & the votes have been processed, the people’s will is clear – I’m honored to serve as Florida’s next Commissioner of Agriculture," Fried wrote on Twitter.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, who serves in Florida's District 24, said that Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio "are making reckless and unfounded accusations about the midterm election in an attempt to prevent every vote from being counted. What are they afraid of?" </s> Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and the FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state.

The bureau described the threat as "credible" and significant, "an eight on a scale of one to 10," Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R), said Monday. As a result, Reagan shut down the state's voter registration system for nearly a week.

It turned out that the hackers had not compromised the state system or even any county system. They had, however, stolen the user name and password of a single elections official in Gila County.

Roberts said FBI investigators did not specify whether the hackers were criminals or employed by the Russian government. Bureau officials on Monday declined to comment.

The Arizona incident is the latest indication of Russian interest in U.S. elections and party operations, and follows the discovery of a high-profile penetration into Democratic National Committee computers. That hack produced embarrassing emails that led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and sowed dissension on the eve of Hillary Clinton's nomination as the party's presidential candidate.

The Russian campaign is also sparking intense anxiety about the security of this year's elections. Earlier this month, the FBI warned state officials to be on the lookout for intrusions into their elections systems. The "flash" alert, which was first reported by Yahoo News, said investigators had detected attempts to penetrate election systems in several states and listed Internet protocol addresses and other technical fingerprints associated with the hacks.

In addition to Arizona, Illinois officials discovered an intrusion into their elections system in July. Although the hackers did not alter any data, the intrusion marks the first successful compromise of a state voter-registration database, federal officials said.

"This was a highly sophisticated attack most likely from a foreign (international) entity," said Kyle Thomas, director of voting and registration systems for the Illinois State Board of Elections, in a message that was sent to all election authorities in the state.

The Illinois hackers were able to retrieve voter records, but the number accessed was "a fairly small percentage of the total," said Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois elections board.

State officials alerted the FBI, he said, and the Department of Homeland Security also was involved. The intrusion in Illinois led to a week-long shutdown of the voter registration system.

The FBI has told Illinois officials that it is looking at foreign government agencies and criminal hackers as potential culprits, Menzel said.

At least two other states are looking into possible breaches, officials said. Meanwhile, states across the nation are scrambling to ensure that their systems are secure.

Until now, countries such as Russia and China have shown little interest in voting systems in the United States. But experts said that if a foreign government gained the ability to tamper with voter data - for instance by deleting registration records - such a hack could cast doubt on the legitimacy of U.S. elections.

"I'm less concerned about the attackers getting access to and downloading the information. 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,"said Brian Kalkin, vice president of operations for the Center for Internet Security, which operates the MS-ISAC, a multistate information-sharing center that helps government agencies combat cyberthreats and works closely with federal law enforcement.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has told Congress that manipulation or deletion of data is the next big cyberthreat - "the next push on the envelope."

Tom Hicks, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, an agency set up by Congress after the 2000 Florida recount to maintain election integrity, said he is confident that states have sufficient safeguards in place to ward off attempts to manipulate data.

For example, if a voter's name were deleted and did not show up on the precinct list, the individual could still cast a provisional ballot, Hicks said. Once the voter's status was confirmed, the ballot would be counted.

Hicks also said the actual systems used to cast votes "are not hooked up to the Internet" and so "there's not going to be any manipulation of data." However, more than 30 states have some provisions for online voting, primarily for voters living overseas or serving in the military.

This spring, a DHS official cautioned that online voting is not yet secure.

"We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters' expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security of their votes and provides an avenue for malicious actors to manipulate the voting results," said Neil Jenkins, an official in the department's Office of Cybersecurity and Communications.

Private-sector researchers are also concerned about potential meddling by Russians in the U.S. elections system. Rich Barger, chief information officer at ThreatConnect, said that several of the IP addresses listed in the FBI alert trace back to a website-hosting service called King Servers that offers Russia-based technical support. Barger also said that one of the methods used was similar to a tactic employed in other intrusions suspected of being carried out by the Russian government, including one this month on the World Anti-Doping Agency.

"The very fact that [someone] has rattled the doorknobs, the very fact that the state election commissions are in the cross hairs, gives grounds to the average American voter to wonder: Can they really trust the results?" Barger said.

Earlier this month, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call with state elections officials, offering his assistance in protecting against cyberattacks.

Johnson said that DHS was "not aware of any specific or credible cybersecurity threats relating to the upcoming general election systems," according to a readout of the call.

It was not clear whether he was aware at the time of the FBI's investigations in Arizona and Illinois. </s> On Saturday, the Florida secretary of state announced that the races for governor, senator, and agriculture commissioner are all officially headed for a recount. According to the Washington Post, Republican Rick Scott’s lead for Senate has shrunk to just over 12,000 votes, while gubernatorial candidate Republican Ron DeSantis is leading by about 33,000 votes. The Florida election has once again gained national attention as accusations of fraud and problems with ballots have brought the races to the forefront of the midterm elections.

In his race against Democrat Senator Bill Nelson, Governor Rick Scott leads by just 12,500 votes. Rick Scott’s campaign has accused Broward County election supervisor Brenda Snipes of election fraud after she was forced to admit that she had counted about a dozen rejected ballots.

“Three days after Election Day, the vote tally continues to change and Supervisor Snipes still refuses to explain where and how the new votes came to light,” the campaign said. “The public deserves a clear and direct answer.”

After vote counts were made public, Scott’s campaign called for Nelson to concede the election and spare the cost of a recount, but Nelson stayed the course. Meanwhile, Scott escalated tensions by claiming, without evidence, that “left-wing activists” were attempting to steal the election.

President Trump has joined in the accusations, spending the past few days tweeting about the midterm elections, calling into question the results.

“Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!” he tweeted on Friday.

Trump suggested that the narrowing margin between Scott and Nelson is attributed to fraud.

“Rick Scott was up by 50,000+ votes on Election Day, now they “found” many votes and he is only up 15,000 votes. ‘The Broward Effect.’ How come they never find Republican votes?” he said.

The race for governor between Representative Ron DeSantis and Democrat Mayor Andrew Gillum has a wider gap, but is still within the margin for a recount. The president commented on the race, saying that Gillum had conceded the election, but was now “back in play.” “This is an embarrassment to our Country and to Democracy!” he wrote.

The Florida Department of State, which is run by individuals appointed by Scott, said that no evidence of criminal activity was found. After the news of the Florida recount was announced, Trump once again took to Twitter to call the process an attempt to “steal” the election. “Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!” he said.

Andrew Weinstein, a representative for the Democratic Lawyers Council, countered Trump’s claims of fraud, saying that more Democratic votes have been counted in the past few days as the Broward County results come in because there are more Democrats in that county.

“Florida has never had a full statewide recount. It’s about to have three,” he said. “Buckle up.”

Florida has until Thursday to complete the recount. </s> Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and the FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russian hackers were behind the assault on the election system in that state.

The bureau told Arizona officials that the threat was “credible” and severe, ranking as “an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10,” said Matt Roberts, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.

As a result, Secretary of State Michele Reagan shut down the state voter registration system for almost a week.

It turned out that the hackers did not succeed in compromising the state system or even any county system, but rather had managed to steal the user name and password for one Gila County elections official.
• August 15, 2016 Hotels in 10 states, including Colorado, and D.C. may have been hit by hackers Nonetheless, the revelation comes amid news that the FBI is investigating suspected foreign hacks of state election computer systems, and earlier this month warned states to be on the alert for intrusions.

In Illinois, officials discovered an intrusion into their state voter registration system in July.

The FBI’s Aug. 18 warning follows heightened concern over Russian hacks of Democratic Party organizations and possible meddling in the presidential election.

Although the hackers did not alter any data, the intrusion into the Illinois database marks the first succesful compromise of a state election database, federal officials said.

Until now, countries such as Russia and China have shown little interest in voting systems in the United States. But experts said that if a foreign government gains the ability to tamper with voter data, for instance by deleting registration records, such a hack could cast doubt on the legitimacy of U.S. elections.

Meanwhile, the recently discovered hacks have state officials across the country scrambling to ensure that their systems have not been compromised. At least two other states are looking into potential breaches, officials said.

“This was a highly sophisticated attack most likely from a foreign (international) entity,” said Kyle Thomas, director of voting and registration systems for the Illinois State Board of Elections, in a message that was sent to all election authorities in the state.

In July, officials in that state discovered the intrusion, in which hackers were able to retrieve voter records. The amount accessed was “a fairly small percentage of the total,” said Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois elections board.

State officials alerted the FBI, he said. The Department of Homeland Security also got involved, he said. The intrusion led the state election board to shut down the voter registration system for a week.

In June, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office shut down part of its website after the FBI found a potential threat to its state voter registration system, according to the Arizona Republic.

Following those breaches, the FBI issued its “flash” alert, which listed Internet protocol addresses and other technical fingerprints associated with the hacks.

“The FBI is requesting that states contact their Board of Elections and determine if any similar activity to their logs, both inbound and outbound, has been detected,” said the FBI alert, which was first reported by Yahoo News.

The FBI declined official comment other than to note it “routinely advises private industry of various cyber threat indicators” it turns up in investigations.

The bureau has told Illinois officials that they’re looking at possible foreign government agencies as well as criminal hackers, Menzel said.

The technical details in the alert were gathered by the MS-ISAC, a multi-state information-sharing center that helps state, local and tribal government agencies combat cyber threats and that works with federal law enforcement agencies.

“I’m less concerned about the attackers getting access to and downloading the information,” said Brian Kalkin, vice president of operations for the Center for Internet Security, which operates the MS-ISAC. “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.”

And James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, has told Congress that ma­nipu­la­tion or deletion of data is the next big cyber threat–”the next push on the envelope.”

But Tom Hicks, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, an agency set up by Congress after the 2000 Florida recount to maintain election integrity, said he is confident that states have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure efforts at ma­nipu­la­tion will be unsuccesful.

For one, he said, if a voter’s name does not show up on the list, the individual can still cast a provision ballot and once his or her status is confirmed, the ballot will be counted. Also, he said, in general the voting systems themselves “are not hooked up to the Internet” and so “there’s not going to be any ma­nipu­la­tion of data.”

Nonetheless, more than 30 states have some provisions for online voting, primarily for voters living overseas of serving in the military. An official at the Department of Homeland Security cautioned this spring that online voting is not yet secure.

“We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters’ expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security of their votes and provides an avenue for malicious actors to manipulate the voting results,” Neil Jenkins, an official in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security,

Some private-sector researchers say some of the information released by the FBI points to a potential Russian link, but they caution that their work is preliminary. Rich Barger, chief information officer at ThreatConnect, said that several of the IP addresses trace back to a website-hosting service called King Servers that offers Russia-based technical support. He also said that one of the methods used was similar to a tactic in other intrusions suspected of being carried out by the Russian government, including one this month on the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“The very fact that [someone] has rattled the doorknobs, the very fact that the state election commissions are in the cross-hairs gives grounds to the average American voter to wonder: Can they really trust the results?” said Barger.

On Aug. 15, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call with state election officials, offering the Department of Homeland Security’s assistance in protecting against cyberattacks.

He said that DHS was “not aware of any specific or credible cybersecurity threats relating to the upcoming general election systems,” according to a readout of the call. It was not clear whether he was aware at the time of the FBI’s investigation into the Arizona and Illinois intrusions. </s> Florida authorities on Saturday ordered a statewide recount in the contentious races for US Senate and governor, amid tit-for-tat accusations of fraud from the candidates -- plunging the state once again into election uncertainty.

Eighteen years after the Sunshine State found itself at the heart of a battle for the US presidency, it was once again in the spotlight after Tuesday's vote, which left the contests for statewide offices undecided.

Florida's 67 counties had been given until midday (1700 GMT) on Saturday to submit unofficial totals.

State law triggers a machine recount if the difference in a race is within 0.5 percent. Florida's secretary of state Ken Detzner issued the official order for the recounts after the deadline.

After the cut-off, the Senate race between outgoing Republican governor Rick Scott and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson was super close: Scott's lead stood at just 12,562 votes out of nearly 8.2 million cast, a margin of just 0.15 percent.

In the governor's race, the latest unofficial results on the Florida division of elections website show Republican Ron DeSantis, who was backed by Donald Trump, leading Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum by just 33,684 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast, or a margin of 0.41 percent.

"Machine recount indicated," the website said in both cases.

In a statement, Detzner said the results of the machine recount would be due on November 15 at 3:00 pm (2000 GMT).

Trump was not amused by the development, tweeting from France: "Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!"

With Florida's developments raising partisan tensions to fresh highs, Trump on Friday alleged a major corruption scandal was brewing.

"What's going on in Florida is a disgrace," Trump told reporters.

"Bad things are going on in Broward Country, really bad things," Trump added, referring to a Democrat-heavy county where officials were slowly counting votes including absentee and provisional ballots.

Scott filed lawsuits against Broward and Palm Beach counties alleging fraud after his lead narrowed.

On Saturday, he urged Florida's sheriffs to "watch for any violations during the recount process as outlined in Florida law."

Meanwhile, Nelson -- accusing Scott of trying to suppress votes -- fired back with a lawsuit of his own to block steps that would reject thousands of mail-in ballots.

The recount is reminiscent of the dramatic recounts that occurred in parts of Florida after the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Those recounts were halted by the US Supreme Court, and Bush defeated Gore by 537 votes in Florida to win the presidency. Broward County was at the heart of that controversy as well.

Most US political races have already been settled. But Florida is not alone.

In neighboring Georgia, the Democratic candidate for governor initiated legal action to ensure all votes were counted in her contest.

In Arizona, there is still no official result in a fierce US Senate battle that has Democrat Kyrsten Sinema leading Republican Martha McSally by a slim margin.

The ballot chaos raises fresh questions about why the world's most powerful democracy is incapable of producing swift and accurate election results across all 50 states. </s> The Florida secretary of state has officially ordered a recount in the U.S. Senate and governor races, an unprecedented review of two major races in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election.

Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order on Saturday after the unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law triggers a recount.

The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by .41 percentage points.

In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's leads over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson by .15 percentage points.

Detzner also ordered a recount for Florida's Agriculture Commissioner race where Democratic Nikki Fried stands .06 percentage points above Republican Matt Caldwell.

All three races will undergo machine recounts with results due no later than 3pm on Thursday November 15 to the Florida Department of State.

If the vote is too close to call yet again by falling within a 0.25 margin or less, the three races will advance to hand recounts, due to be completed by November 18.

County elections supervisors had until noon Saturday to submit results.

President Donald Trump - who campaigned for both Scott and DeSantis - said that the recounts are a Democrat ploy to steal the election.

'Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!' the president tweeted on Saturday.

Scott called for his opponent DeSantis to decline the recount.

'It's time for Senator Nelson to accept reality and spare the state of the Florida the time, expense and discord of a recount,' Scott's spokesman Chris Hartline said.

Nelson responded saying he does not intend to back down.

'We have every expectation the recount will be full and fair and will continue taking action to ensure every vote is counted without interference or efforts to undermine the democratic process. We believe when every legal ballot is counted we'll win this election,' he said in a statement.

All the while protesters rallied outside the offices of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections in Lauderhill on Saturday where the final counts were made ahead of the noon deadline.

The announcement was made after Broward County election monitors said they saw no evidence of criminal activity in Tuesday's midterm election, despite the county being run by a controversial supervisor who mixed in illegal votes and failed to reveal the number of uncounted votes.

'Our staff has seen no evidence of criminal activity at this time,' Sarah Revell, spokesperson for the state Department of Elections, said to the Miami Herald on Saturday morning.

Following Tuesday's election, Rick Scott filed a lawsuit against Broward County and Palm Beach County, accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election on Thursday evening. He asked for Snipes to turn over several records detailing the counting and collection of ballots.

Snipes has been accused of 'fraud' in how she handled counting ballots in the election by Scott, President Donald Trump, and Republicans. She has a long history of controversies when it comes to vote counting.

She agreed to present 205 provisional ballots to Broward County's canvassing board for inspection, and the board declared on Friday that 20 of the 205 provisional ballots were illegal due to mismatched signatures.

They were set aside then counted in a voting machine, but the results were not added to the election's final total vote count.

On Friday the county didn't know how to move forward with the invalid ballots.

'We have found no clear authority controlling the situation faced by the board,' Broward County Attorney Andrew Meyers said.

Broward County collected more than 600 provisional ballots on Election Day, but majority were deemed invalid by the board for reasons including late registration or voting in the wrong precinct.

Since the election two Department of Elections have been stationed in Broward County to oversee see the administration of the elections, visit polling stations and 'ensure all laws are followed'.

In May Florida's Secretary of State announced increased oversight after a court found Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes broke the law by authorizing the premature destruction of ballots pertaining to a contested race following the 2016 elections.

On Saturday Broward official hit back at fraud allegations in a news conference after the ballot tally.

'There have been allegation of fraud. Those are serious charges to recklessly offer out there. To give a claim of fraud without any evidence, I think it unacceptable,' Eugene Pettis, a lawyer for Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said. </s> Washington (CNN) Hackers have breached databases for election systems in Illinois and Arizona, according to state election and law enforcement officials.

In Illinois, hackers accessed a database for the Illinois Board of Elections, compromising up to 200,000 personal voter records according to Ken Menzel, General Counsel for the board.

The FBI is investigating the hack, which initially occurred in late June and was discovered in July. It was first reported by Yahoo . Officials with the Board of Elections are "highly confident they (the hackers) weren't able to change anything, although the investigation is still going on" according to Menzel.

Investigators believe the hackers are likely based overseas, according to a law enforcement official.

The Illinois database included voters' names, addresses, sex and birthdays in addition to other information. Some of the records include either last four digits of a voter's social security number or drivers' license numbers. The database is comprised of records for 15 million individuals and is 10 years old. Not all outdated information has been purged, according to Menzel, so some of those records likely include information for deceased voters or those who have subsequently moved.

According to Matthew Roberts, director of communications for the Arizona secretary of state, in late May, Arizona officials took the statewide voting registration system offline after the FBI alerted the Arizona Department of Administration that there was a credible cyber threat to the voter registration system.

Although The Washington Post reported that Roberts attributed the database breach directly to a Russian hacker, when pressed by CNN, he said that the Arizona secretary of state's office learned of Russian involvement from internal IT and cyber security staff. "We indirectly heard that the credential and username posted online was from a known Russian hacker," Roberts said.

When they took the system offline to review any vulnerabilities, they discovered that a county election official's username and password had been posted online publicly. It's believed that a worker may have inadvertently downloaded a virus which exposed the username and password. In this instance, the username and password information posted would only give individuals access to a localized, county version of the voting registration system, and not the entire state-wide system.

Roberts says there is no evidence that any data within the system was compromised and there was no evidence of malware present in the database.

The breaches are causing concern among election officials because of the voter personal information that could have been stolen, not because of any fear that an election could be stolen, law enforcement officials say.

States have a variety of systems -- some better than others -- but the voting machines and tabulating systems are generally not connected to the Internet, which would be the vulnerability hackers would use to compromise the electoral system.

The Department of Homeland Security is unaware of any specific credible threat to the electoral systems, according to a law enforcement official.

Election databases are attractive targets to hackers because they contain personal information that can be cobbled together with other data to help criminals steal money.

DHS has offered to help states increase security of their systems, but states have rebuffed federal help and largely believe their systems are secure. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call recently to discuss whether DHS should declare electoral systems as critical infrastructure , which triggers more involvement from the federal government. States have resisted those moves.

Asked about the intrusions while speaking at the Symantec Government Symposium in Washington, FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday he didn't want to comment on a specific case but said the bureau is always looking at ways to counteract cyberattacks.

"We take very seriously any effort by any actor -- including nation states, especially nation states that move beyond the collection of information about our country and offers the prospect of an effort to influence the conduct of affairs in our country -- whether it is an election or something else," Comey said.

Illinois officials say it's been a challenge to identify everyone whose records were compromised as they have to sort through the 109 jurisdictions that may have been affected. According to Menzel, they are working with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to figure out who was responsible.

Menzel says the board is not concerned about the integrity of the voting system and does not expect the breach to impact the upcoming general election.

Illinois voting machines are not connected to the internet in any way, according to Menzel. Most voters in Illinois use an optical scan ballot but some jurisdictions do have touch screen machines to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations. In some large counties, such as Cook County, at the end of the voting day, early unofficial voting results are reported back and sent via cell phone signal but they have encryption protection. Arizona largely uses paper ballots and also has touch screen machines.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announces that Russian hackers accessed voter databases in two Florida counties prior to the 2016 presidential election. No data or vote tallies were affected.