By Cory Bennett and Eric Geller
The FBI’s decision to issue a nationwide alert
about the possible hacking of state election offices after breaches in
Illinois and Arizona is raising concerns that a nationwide attack could
be afoot, with the potential for creating havoc on Election Day.
It’s possible that the motivation behind the two state hacks was less
about the political system and more about cash. Voter registration data
sets include valuable information — such as names, birth dates, phone
numbers and physical and email addresses — that criminal hackers can
bundle and flip on the black-market “dark web” for thousands of dollars.
But some cyber experts said the FBI’s alert, first revealed
by Yahoo News on Monday, could be a sign that investigators are worried
that foreign actors are attempting a wide-scale digital onslaught.
A former lead agent in the FBI’s Cyber Division said the hackers’ use
of a particular attack tool and the level of the FBI’s alert “more than
likely means nation-state attackers.” The alert was coded “Amber,”
designating messages with sensitive information that “should not be
widely distributed and should not be made public,” the ex-official said.
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Source: Politico
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