FBI Worries Russian Hackers May Interfere with US Presidential Election

The FBI and US Homeland Security are concerned over a series of recent hacks believed sponsored by either the Russian government or other countries.

After attacks on the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Convention email leak, as well as evidence that election databases have been targeted by hackers, US intelligence is worried the same hackers could interfere with voting for the presidential election in November.

Unidentified sources named Arizona and Illinois as the two states involved in the cyberattack, Yahoo News reported. Personal information of up to 200,000 voters was stolen in Illinois, while in Arizona the voting system was infected with malicious software.

Investigators found several links to the criminal underground in Russia, including one of the IPs and the tools used to detect vulnerabilities for further exploit.

The FBI”s cyber division has issued an alert urging an immediate boost in cybersecurity levels.

“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,” the alert reads. “Attempts should not be made to touch or ping the IP addresses directly.”