US Election Officials Worried About Russian Cyber Attacks
Election officials in the United States are working to stop threats to the election system from cyber attackers.
And Democrats in Congress are calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate reports that Russia may be planning to try to affect the presidential election in November.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid recently sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey.
The letter said the threat of Russia tampering with the elections “is more extensive than widely known. ...The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking toundermine our free and fair elections represents one of the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War.”
Four senior House Democrats asked the FBI to investigate officials in the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
In a letter, the representatives said they want to know if the officials worked with Russia to carry out recent attacks against the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to “interfere with the U.S. presidential election.”
Russian government involved?
News reports said American officials believe Russian hackers illegally entered the election systems of two states in August. The FBI has not named the states.
But Yahoo News, which first reported the hacks, reported that its sources said the states were Arizona and Illinois. The website reported that an Illinois election official said the voter registration system was shut down for 10 days after hackers gathered information about 200,000 voters. In the Arizona attack, harmful software was placed into the voter registration system.
Russia has said its government officials were not involved in the attacks on the Democratic party organizations or the states.
Electronic voting vulnerable
Federal officials are increasingly worried about the possibility that foreign hackers -- particularly those working for Russia -- could enter the computer systems of American states and disrupt the presidential election.
Timothy Carone works at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. In an interview with VOA, he said he believes “this election will probably start to showcase the future around problems we’ll have with electronic voting.”
Election officials in the United States are working to stop threats to the election system from cyber attackers.
And Democrats in Congress are calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate reports that Russia may be planning to try to affect the presidential election in November.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid recently sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey.
The letter said the threat of Russia tampering with the elections “is more extensive than widely known. ...The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking toundermine our free and fair elections represents one of the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War.”
Four senior House Democrats asked the FBI to investigate officials in the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
In a letter, the representatives said they want to know if the officials worked with Russia to carry out recent attacks against the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to “interfere with the U.S. presidential election.”
Russian government involved?
News reports said American officials believe Russian hackers illegally entered the election systems of two states in August. The FBI has not named the states.
But Yahoo News, which first reported the hacks, reported that its sources said the states were Arizona and Illinois. The website reported that an Illinois election official said the voter registration system was shut down for 10 days after hackers gathered information about 200,000 voters. In the Arizona attack, harmful software was placed into the voter registration system.
Russia has said its government officials were not involved in the attacks on the Democratic party organizations or the states.
Electronic voting vulnerable
Federal officials are increasingly worried about the possibility that foreign hackers -- particularly those working for Russia -- could enter the computer systems of American states and disrupt the presidential election.
Timothy Carone works at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. In an interview with VOA, he said he believes “this election will probably start to showcase the future around problems we’ll have with electronic voting.”
