FEC shuts electronic filing after attempted breach before midterms
Original title: Hackers Target U.S. Election Commission, Forcing Online System Shutdown Days Before Midterms
New campaign-finance submissions were blocked from late October 26; voting and already filed public records were not.
The U.S. Federal Election Commission took web-facing electronic filing offline late on October 26 after an officer emailed compliance firms that a bad actor was attempting to breach agency systems, days before the November 3 midterms. The status page logged an investigation at 10:15 p.m. Eastern and, at 8:17 p.m. on October 27, said a fix was being implemented, but the incident stayed unresolved. Previously filed reports remained searchable. Reuters and the FEC have not named attackers, a method, data theft, ransomware, or a software flaw.
Unconfirmed: Sources describe an attempted breach and a defensive shutdown, not confirmed theft, changed filings, or lasting access.
- The outage blocks 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports, not ballot casting.
- A related FECfile+ submission outage was also listed.
- OpenSecrets said super PACs and dark-money groups averaged over $50 million a day the prior week.
- More than $250 million was reported on October 20 alone.
- No public link was made to the earlier UK Electoral Commission breach.
Impact: Filing of new campaign finance disclosures taken offline
- Victims
- Federal Election Commission
- Organizations
- ReutersOpenSecrets
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
3 min read at cybersecuritynews.com
Hackers targeting the U. S. Federal Election Commission forced officials to shut down its electronic filing system days before the November 3 midterm elections, blocking campaign finance disclosures during a critical spending period.
By Dhivya · cybersecuritynews.com
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.