Voter registration information in at least one state was recently accessed from abroad as part of an Iranian hacking campaign targeting next week’s White House race, U.S. officials said Friday.
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency assess the data was copied by the same culprit responsible for intimidating emails purportedly sent recently by the Proud Boys.
In a joint advisory, the agencies said the perpetrator is an Iranian advanced persistent threat, or APT, actor — a term reserved for organized, often state-sponsored hacking groups.
“CISA and the FBI can confirm that the actor successfully obtained voter registration data in at least one state,” reads part of the joint advisory the agencies issued.
The information appears to have been accessed as the result of the APT exploiting a misconfigured website and then running an automated process to copy the voter records, according to the alert.
Voter information copied from the state election site was subsequently used in a propaganda video that was received by some of the recipients of the intimidating emails, according to the alert.
The emails were received by voters in several states earlier this month and falsely claimed to be sent on behalf of the Proud Boys, a controversial men’s group that quickly denied involvement.
Recipients were told the Proud Boys had acquired their information and warned they risked consequences unless they change their political affiliation to Republican and vote for President Trump.
Without mentioning the Proud Boys by name, U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe announced soon afterward that Iran was responsible for sending the “spoofed” emails.
“Further evaluation by CISA and the FBI has identified the targeting of U.S. state election websites was an intentional effort to influence and interfere with the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” the agencies said in summarizing their recent findings Friday.
Iran has previously denied interfering in Tuesday’s election.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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