CISA and FBI say there have been no hacks on voter databases

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Agency and the FBI confirmed they have not viewed proof of cyber attacks on registration databases or on any voting devices so much this year.

The joint statement, unveiled Tuesday, came immediately after a Russian news outlet falsely claimed that Michigan voter databases experienced been dumped on a dim world-wide-web system. Even though the in the vicinity of-worry of the Russian report was not perfect, it did direct to the very crucial update from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Agency (CISA) and the FBI: The hack, or any other people, never happened.

The Russian news outlet initial released the report Tuesday, which rapidly obtained picked up by domestic news shops. Julia Ioffe, a correspondent for GQ Journal, posted a hyperlink to the report on her Twitter feed.

Russian journalists have uncovered facts from Michigan voter facts rolls—including the personal data of seven.6 million Michigan voters—on a Russian hackers’ system. It also contains voter data from other swing states, such as Florida and NC https://t.co/EIiWioTbkF

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe)
September one, 2020

Some infosec authorities referred to as awareness to it as properly, which included gasoline to the fire. Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former CTO of Crowdstrike, posted a now-deleted tweet that was similar to Ioffe’s. However, he manufactured an update later on in the day:

UPDATE: I have confirmed that at minimum for some of the unveiled databases, the unveiled fields are deemed general public data in individuals states. Non general public data (this kind of as SSN) are not unveiled. This might not be a hack immediately after all https://t.co/8PlocH9oOy

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch)
September one, 2020

To quell the uncertainty, Michigan responded.

“Public voter information in Michigan and somewhere else is accessible to anybody by means of a FOIA ask for. Our system has not been hacked. We motivate all Michigan voters to be wary of makes an attempt to ‘hack’ their minds, nevertheless, by questioning the sources of information and commercials they come upon and trying to get out trustworthy sources, such as their have area election clerk and our office,” the Michigan Section of Condition wrote in an advisory. Cybersecurity specialist Alex Stamos took to Twitter to share his feelings on the deceptive report about voter databases as properly.

We gotta be very careful about jumping at shadows and legit reporters and authorities should really be very careful about what credit rating we give our adversaries without them earning it. This type of paranoia is a single of the aims of Russia’s impact operations.

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos)
September one, 2020

Disinformation, primarily that stemming from foreign adversaries, is a widespread concern amid voters when it comes to 2020 election protection. All through a virtual voting simulation final thirty day period by Cybereason, dubbed Procedure Blackout, a single lesson figured out was that obtaining clear channels of information or disinformation was very crucial for affecting general public sentiment for both sides.

Mark Testoni, CEO of SAP Countrywide Safety Services, explained it’s essential to be vigilant throughout election times.

“Recognition and preparation appears to be a large amount better than in the 2016 election,” Testoni explained. “It really is crucial to make positive the citizens are aware of individuals forms of factors — an attempt to impact. There should really be a standard consciousness of factors happening on the social media aspect, much too.”

Jeremy Grant, president of Greater Identity Coalition, spoke to the growing significance of CISA throughout a virtual roundtable final thirty day period on e-voting.

“There is wonderful get the job done being finished at CISA with the Section of Homeland Safety to emphasis on election protection,” Grant explained throughout the roundtable. “This is a top precedence suitable now. They have invested rather a bit in doing the job with the states, in speaking about how to support them harden their election infrastructure, which in several circumstances experienced no cybersecurity protections at all.”