Photo: KATU
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Russian hackers tried to access elections systems in 21 states including Oregon and Washington.
Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson says none of the attacks on Oregon systems was successful.
“We block upwards of 14 million attempts to access our network every day,” said Chief Information Security Officer Lisa Vasa. “These attempts come from all over the world, including Russia, with the largest number from the US.”
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson added, “We are proud of our team. The fact that DHS confirmed that we had no Russian intrusions is a testament to the strength of the network security program we have in place.”
The same was true for Washington State. The hackers were not able to gain access to the system.
Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman said, “As we’ve stated before, we continue to work cooperatively with DHS – including during the election last year. The security protocols we already have in place made us aware of these attempted intrusions by Russian IP addresses throughout the course of the 2016 election. There was no successful intrusion and we immediately alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the activities.
“Today’s calls from DHS to all 50 states and six U.S. territories confirm what we already knew…that despite the ongoing attempts to compromise American election systems, my office is doing everything we can, utilizing the latest software, best practices and security measures, to keep Washington’s elections safe, reliable and accessible to our citizens.”