US intelligence claims Russian hackers probed electoral networks in 21 US states

Liles’ claims were also supported by Jeanette Manfra, acting director of Homeland Security’s national protection and programs directorate.

Jeanette Manfra confirmed that hackers breached some websites and computer networks, but voting tallies from the 2016 election hadn’t been hacked.

“In September, our products at the classified and unclassified levels reported that we had no indication that adversaries or criminals were planning cyber operations against the U.S. election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming U.S. election. Further, we assessed that multiple checks and redundancies in U.S. election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaign, and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of U.S. election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.” she said.

The vice chairman of the committee, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) didn’t agree that secrecy about the name of hacked states, same opinion was shared by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).

The Panelist Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, said that his agency has not assessed the alleged Russian influence to the result of the 2016 Presidential election.

“Russia’s 2016 Presidential election influence effort was its boldest to date in the United States,” he told the committee.

“Russia’s activities included efforts to discredit Secretary Clinton and to publicly contrast her unfavorably with President Trump. This Russian effort included the weaponization of stolen cyber information, the use of Russia’s English-language state media as a strategic messaging platform, and the mobilization of social media bots and trolls to spread disinformation and amplify Russian messaging.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Russian Hackers, 2016 Presidential election)

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