After the United States last Friday blamed Russia for breaching Democratic Party political organizations and warned that computers in Russia are behind recent probes of election systems in some states, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Monday said more states are seeking help with their cyber security.
Johnson said that 33 state and 11 county or local election agencies have approached the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about the cyber security services his department is offering them. That number is up from 21 states on Oct. 1.
“With 29 days to go before the Nov. 8 election, we encourage other election agencies to do the same,” Johnson said in a statement.
Last Thursday several online media sites, including DCLeaks and WikiLeaks, released emails from Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton’s aides and her and her husband’s philanthropic foundations. On Friday, DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence blamed the Russian government for the cyber thefts of these emails.
“The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” the joint statement said. “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”
Regarding the intrusions against some states’ election-related systems, the DHS and intelligence community statement said the “scanning and probing” of these systems mostly “originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government.”
The services that DHS is offering election agencies throughout the U.S. include cyber hygiene scans on Internet-facing systems, and risk and vulnerability assessments. The hygiene scans are done remotely and enable DHS to provide a report on vulnerabilities and recommendations to strengthen the security of the election systems.