A leaked NSA report says that Russian’s cyber attacked the election poll books of more than 20 counties of North Carolina in August last year. And what’s even more shocking in this entire attack saga is that the activity remained undetected until NSA was pressed into service by former US President Obama to look for clues on Russian influence on US 2016 Polls.
The report which was brought to light by news site “The Intercept” says that Russians succeeded in influencing the elections by getting a hold of the electoral database from VR systems- a company which manages poll books and electronic systems meant to check-in the voters.
Furthermore, the news resource adds that Russian’s hacked VR Systems in May 2016, but succeeded in getting a hold of its database in August’16.
Although the activity took place for months, the officials of VR systems remained clueless of the developments till “The Intercept” leaked out some facts discovered by NSA in a probe launched in May this year.
However, Durham County Election Director Derek Bowens insisted that no vote counts were affected or influenced by cyber attacks launched by Russia. And the errors which were reported in the media during the elections took place due to some administrative flaws.
Cybersecurity Insiders has learned from “The Intercept” that NSA has enough evidence to prove that Russia succeeded in influencing the US Polls held on November 8th of 2017.
And the news resource adds that a detailed report on this issue was presented to former US President Barack Obama on January 8th of 2017. But for some reason, he chose to remain silent on this issue and compelled White House not to leak the report to the press.
Meanwhile, VR Systems has disagreed that its systems were compromised by a foreign nation and urged the media to first verify the facts with them and then publish the stories.
More details will be updated shortly!
