The state of Georgia on Thursday accused the U.S. Homeland Security
Department of apparently trying to hack its election systems
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Georgia Secretary of
State Brian P. Kemp said a computer traced back to the federal agency in
Washington tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the state office's firewall one
week after the presidential election. The letter speculated that what it
described as "a large unblocked scan event" might have been a security test.
It sought details, including whether the agency did in fact conduct the
unauthorized scan, who authorized it and whether other states might have been
similarly probed. Kemp cited the federal law against knowingly accessing a
computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, which is a
felony.
"At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration
testing or security scans of our network," Kemp wrote. "Moreover, your
department has not contacted my office since this unsuccessful incident to alert
us of any security event that would require testing or scanning of our network."
Kemp said this was "especially odd and concerning" given that he is a member
of the U.S. Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group run by the
federal agency.
Homeland Security spokesman Scott McConnell said the department got Kemp's
letter and is "looking into the matter."
"DHS takes the trust of our public and private sector partners seriously, and
we will respond to Secretary Kemp directly," McConnell said.
Forty-eight states accepted offers by the Homeland Security Department to
scan their networks ahead of the presidential elections. The scans looked for
vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit by hackers. The U.S. also described
how states could patch their networks to make it more difficult to penetrate
them.
Georgia was among two states that did not accept the department's offer.
It said it had contracted with an outside agency and already implemented
protective measures.
"They offered to provide these services, we declined it and then we
determine they attempted to hack our system," said David Dove, chief of
staff and legal counsel for Kemp's office.
Dove said the state was alerted at the time the attack occurred.
Georgia's system holds personal information on more than 6.5 million
residents, more than 800,000 corporate entities and more than 500,000
licensed or registered professionals. The office registers voters, tracks
annual corporate filings, grants professional licenses and oversees the
state's securities market.
U.S. officials stepped up outreach to the states in the months prior to
the November election after hackers targeted elections-related systems in
more than 20 states. The FBI warned state officials of the need to improve
their election security after hackers attempted to hack systems in Illinois
and Arizona.
The attempted hacks involved efforts to mine data from their voter
registration systems. In Arizona a hacker tried to probe voter registration
data, but never infiltrated the system, while in Illinois hackers got into
the system, but didn't manipulate any data.
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