Politics Russia 'hacked' 21 US states in election

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Further

Further

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Russian hackers targeted election systems in 21 US states during last year's campaign, said a US official.

Jeanette Manfra of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refused to identify the states during her testimony before a Senate panel, citing confidentiality agreements.

But she added there was no evidence to suggest actual vote ballots were altered in the election hack.

US intelligence agencies believe Moscow interfered to help Donald Trump win.

Ms Manfra, the department's acting deputy undersecretary of cyber security, testified on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence committee, which is investigating Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

"As of right now, we have evidence that election-related systems in 21 states were targeted," she told the panel.

She said DHS still had confidence in the US voting system because they are "fundamentally resilient".

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in election cyber hacks while Mr Trump has dismissed allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia as "fake news".

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday refused to say whether Mr Trump believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

"I have not sat down and talked to him about that specific thing," Mr Spicer said during a daily news briefing.

"Obviously we've been dealing with a lot of other issues today. I'd be glad to touch base."

Senator Mark Warner, a top Democrat on the panel, argued on Wednesday the country was "not any safer" in concealing which states were hit in the hack.

Both Arizona and Illinois last year confirmed that their voter registration systems had been attacked by hackers.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio also expressed concern, adding that as the investigation continues "it is important Americans understand how our voting systems work and communicate that in real time".

Ms Manfra's comments echoed earlier testimony by Samuel Liles, acting director of the DHS cyber division.

Mr Liles told Congress DHS detected hacking activities last spring and summer and later received reports of cyber probing of election systems.

But he added: "None of these systems were involved in vote tallying."

Mr Liles also said "a small number of networks were exploited - they made it through the door."
 
We don't know if they succeeded yet, but looks like there is plenty of evidence they tried. In the case of Dallas County (a very blue county) at least 17 attempts.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...s-targeted-dallas-voter-registration-48055244

A top Texas elections official says Russian hackers attempted to access voter registration rolls in Dallas County before November's presidential election.

County elections administrator Toni Pippins-Poole says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in October alerted elections offices about some 600 IP addresses linked to Russian hackers.

She told The Dallas Morning News that Dallas County scanned county servers for those IP addresses — numeric designations that identify a location on the internet — and found 17 matches for hackers who tried to gain access.

Federal authorities have confirmed some of those attempts came from Russian IP addresses.

Pippins-Poole says the hacking attempts failed.

Homeland Security officials said in September that hackers believed to be Russian agents had targeted voter registration systems in more than 20 states.
 
I wonder what will happen if they find evidence any of these hacks were successful. Regardless of any collusion, it is possible that there were successful hacks that swayed the outcome.
 
Trump came into office at war with the nat'l security chiefs......no surprise he pays no attention to breaches of security.
 
The voting machines themselves have no business being internet connected, or even networked in any way.

I don't see any point in trying to access the "election related systems." Except if hackers get access to the source code for the programs in the voting machines and modify that code, which doesn't appear to be the case. Government contractors I've worked at have the most restrictive security measures in place; people aren't casually browsing the WWW or getting emails delivered that have viruses or phishing links in them.

This kind of report needs to be put into perspective. If you plug your laptop directly into your ISP's ethernet without a firewall, your system may become compromised in a matter of seconds or minutes. There's that kind of hacker activity going on. When I look at the server logs for this site, I see thousands of hack attempts daily.

Like this one:
190.122.222.134 - - [18/Jun/2017:19:14:13 +0000] "GET login.cgi HTTP/1.0" 400 489 "-" "-"

The source IP of that attack is a machine in the UK. The hacker could be anywhere in the world, even a 400lb barfo.

There is no login.cgi on sportstwo, the hacker is trying to brute force access if there were a login.cgi page, by trying thousands or millions or billions of login/passwords.

My spam box is filled with phishing emails. Those would count as attacks if I worked at a voting machine company?

This isn't spin, it's fact.
 
To add to my previous post, this has been an ongoing security issue since the 1990s.
 
Denny Crane said:
To add to my previous post, this has been an ongoing security issue since the 1990s.
Click to expand...
yet this is the first pres in that time span who doesn't know how to use a computer.....you can't deny this is different from previous relationships between the white house and the Pentagon.....FBI..CIA...etc....if ever there were a president open to being hacked and leaking security....it's Trump and his entourage of family and yes men.
 
Denny Crane said:
I don't see any point in trying to access the "election relatedsystems.
Click to expand...

You can influence the outcome without changing votes.

Target a swing county and have the voting rolls website go down which happened in one blue location, I can look up where later, but they don't know if it was hacking or just a glitch. But when that system went down it greatly slowed the check in process causing longer lines and likely reducing the total number of voters.

Point is not that this instance was a hack, but that election related systems can be used to influence.
 
Further said:
You can influence the outcome without changing votes.

Target a swing county and have the voting rolls website go down which happened in one blue location, I can look up where later, but they don't know if it was hacking or just a glitch. But when that system went down it greatly slowed the check in process causing longer lines and likely reducing the total number of voters.

Point is not that this instance was a hack, but that election related systems can be used to influence.
Click to expand...

And if this is human error by Democrat poll workers in a Democrat heavy county, then what?

Historically, there have been all kinds of fishy things that go on.

Like this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

Just sayin' the outrage seems kind of faux. Where was it back then?
 
riverman said:
yet this is the first pres in that time span who doesn't know how to use a computer.....you can't deny this is different from previous relationships between the white house and the Pentagon.....FBI..CIA...etc....if ever there were a president open to being hacked and leaking security....it's Trump and his entourage of family and yes men.
Click to expand...

Iran-Contra proves there has been a deep state all along. We don't elect these people and they have access to dangerous information and capabilities.

The swamp is fighting back.
 
Further said:


Russian hackers targeted election systems in 21 US states during last year's campaign, said a US official.

Jeanette Manfra of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refused to identify the states during her testimony before a Senate panel, citing confidentiality agreements.

But she added there was no evidence to suggest actual vote ballots were altered in the election hack.

US intelligence agencies believe Moscow interfered to help Donald Trump win.

Ms Manfra, the department's acting deputy undersecretary of cyber security, testified on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence committee, which is investigating Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

"As of right now, we have evidence that election-related systems in 21 states were targeted," she told the panel.

She said DHS still had confidence in the US voting system because they are "fundamentally resilient".

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in election cyber hacks while Mr Trump has dismissed allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia as "fake news".

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday refused to say whether Mr Trump believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

"I have not sat down and talked to him about that specific thing," Mr Spicer said during a daily news briefing.

"Obviously we've been dealing with a lot of other issues today. I'd be glad to touch base."

Senator Mark Warner, a top Democrat on the panel, argued on Wednesday the country was "not any safer" in concealing which states were hit in the hack.

Both Arizona and Illinois last year confirmed that their voter registration systems had been attacked by hackers.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio also expressed concern, adding that as the investigation continues "it is important Americans understand how our voting systems work and communicate that in real time".

Ms Manfra's comments echoed earlier testimony by Samuel Liles, acting director of the DHS cyber division.

Mr Liles told Congress DHS detected hacking activities last spring and summer and later received reports of cyber probing of election systems.

But he added: "None of these systems were involved in vote tallying."

Mr Liles also said "a small number of networks were exploited - they made it through the door."
Click to expand...


If this were true our President would have tweeted about it.
 
Denny Crane said:
Just sayin' the outrage seems kind of faux. Where was it back then?
Click to expand...

Wow - you are just sucking from the Trump teat now.

I was careful not to claim anything, just saying that your stance that if it's not an attack on the voting machines it inconsequential is bogus.



As far as outrage, "IF" it turns out that a foreign country altered the outcome of our election I would mother-fucking-certainly be outraged. We k is they tried on a major scale and that's terrible, regardless of what other things happened in the past.




Further - losing a leg would suck
Denny - you didn't complain when you had a splinter so you have nothing to complain about losing a leg,
Further - how salty are trumps red balls
Denny - Sweet, not salty
 
Further said:
Wow - you are just sucking from the Trump teat now.

I was careful not to claim anything, just saying that your stance that if it's not an attack on the voting machines it inconsequential is bogus.



As far as outrage, "IF" it turns out that a foreign country altered the outcome of our election I would mother-fucking-certainly be outraged. We k is they tried on a major scale and that's terrible, regardless of what other things happened in the past.




Further - losing a leg would suck
Denny - you didn't complain when you had a splinter so you have nothing to complain about losing a leg,
Further - how salty are trumps red balls
Denny - Sweet, not salty
Click to expand...

I am putting this into perspective, period.

This site is under attack constantly. Every machine I ever managed that was open to the internet has been under attack. This is a clickbait headline, and people are falling for the bait. Clearly.

If they differentiate between spam email/phishing that goes on all over the place and targeted attacks they can prove the Russians (or whoever) did, then there's a real headline.

It has nothing to do with Trump.
 
Denny Crane said:
I am putting this into perspective, period.

This site is under attack constantly. Every machine I ever managed that was open to the internet has been under attack. This is a clickbait headline, and people are falling for the bait. Clearly.

If they differentiate between spam email/phishing that goes on all over the place and targeted attacks they can prove the Russians (or whoever) did, then there's a real headline.

It has nothing to do with Trump.
Click to expand...
It's not the Russians (or whoever), it's The Russians. This site is under attack constantly however, (1) not concentrated attack by a foreign government, (2) this site isn't responsible for deciding the outcomes of every election in our democracy.

You say you are putting it in perspective period, but I think you are doing the opposite, using something inconsequential and with no parallels to make your argument.

If visitors try to steal extra napkins at a Taco Bell, does that equate to China planning a heist to steal all the gold out of Fort Knox?

There just are no parallels of import. If Russia, a foreign nation, is making a effort to hack our elections, they are basically trying to end our democracy. That's not small.
 
Further said:
It's not the Russians (or whoever), it's The Russians. This site is under attack constantly however, (1) not concentrated attack by a foreign government, (2) this site isn't responsible for deciding the outcomes of every election in our democracy.

You say you are putting it in perspective period, but I think you are doing the opposite, using something inconsequential and with no parallels to make your argument.

If visitors try to steal extra napkins at a Taco Bell, does that equate to China planning a heist to steal all the gold out of Fort Knox?

There just are no parallels of import. If Russia, a foreign nation, is making a effort to hack our elections, they are basically trying to end our democracy. That's not small.
Click to expand...

This site is under attack by Russian hackers. And Romanians, etc.

Russian high school kids (or whoever) have been doing this for decades. Blaming their government is a stretch - I have seen no evidence to support our government's claims, and our government wasn't allowed access to the physical DNC servers (for example) to do any forensic analysis of any hacks.

The Chinese and North Koreans are well known for hacking Sony and Netflix and who knows who else.

Tell me something new.

The parallels are what I described.
 
I'll describe what goes on some more.

Hacker writes a piece of code that scans every port at every IP address on the Internet. It tries numerous means to infiltrate and take control of the systems. Once a system is compromised, the same code runs on that machine, as well as a rootkit or some other software the hacker uses to control the machine. Having 2 machines doing the IP/port scanning cuts the work in half. Eventually, there's a 3rd, 4th, ... nth machine controlled by the hacker, all doing a massive number of hack attempts in parallel. Eventually the hacker has control of millions (potentially) of machines, his "botnet."

Botnets are used from time to time to do massive bandwidth use attacks on major internet sites, banks, and so on. Multiple hackers often join forces and use all their botnets to effect these attacks.

Typically, WordPress (blog software) sites are easily hacked, and there are so many of them. It's not unusual that once hacked, the site is defaced (hacker puts up his own pages, gloating about the takeover), or an illegal file sharing site is added to the blog. The files shared are the actual hacking software and rootkit tools hackers use to take over systems.

Any 400lb teenager on their bed who's in the right chat room or private forum can get a list of thousands, if not millions. of these file sharing sites. It doesn't take a lot of technical ability to download the hacker tools and run them. It only takes technical ability to write the hacking software in the first place. Even then, the technically able hackers share their code and learn from what others do.

When I showed an image of proof this site is under attack, it was from a server in the UK. This in no way suggests the hackers are from the UK. It could be Romanians who took over a machine in the UK. Even if we could get access to the UK machine and do forensic analysis, it's likely we see the machine is accessed by the hackers from another hacked system in Poland. The chain could be hundreds of servers long.

The "fingerprints" argument is specious. Our own government hacks just as the hackers do (see stuxnet virus attack on Iran), and has the capability to leave fingerprints pointing at the Russian government (or anyone else they choose). To assume our government is somehow smarter than the hacker community is foolish.

Believe what you want.
 
Phishing

This is a technique where the hacker puts a link or a virus/attachment to download in an email or on a WWW site.

In theory, any spammer link posted here, and even what posters post thinking they're legit links could be one of these phishing links.

If the phishing is done in an email, it's typically a file download, like a calendar invite, an excel spreadsheet or word document, etc. Once you open the attachment, your system is compromised. This is 99% (my guess) effective on Windows systems.

A typical phishing email is like the one sent to Podesta. "Your google account needs your attention, click on this link to fix"

The link takes you to the hacker's site that is made to look EXACTLY like a google site, the only tell is the URL (which Podesta obviously didn't pay attention to).

The hacker's page says "enter your email address and password" and Podesta did just that. The hacker now has his login and password and logs in to read Podesta's email. It isn't just Podesta - as I said, my spam email folder has thousands of these phishing emails in them.

It doesn't have to be a site that asks for login/password. The site may simply cause the download of a virus/spyware to the user's computer that exploits some bug/security hole in the user's software (the operating system itself, the browser, Java plugin, flash, etc.).

I have seen friends of mine get hacked via phishing. The downloaded virus at least goes through the person's contact list and emails all his contacts a phishing email. The email looks like it's coming from my friend, but has a phishing link or attachment in it.

In Podesta's case, his contact list happens to be a lot of creepy Democrat Party operatives, and some of them likely fell for the Phishing, too.

Lastly, Podesta may have used the same login/password at gmail as he did for his online banking, the server credentials, and so on. Once the hacker got his email/password, potentially all of Podesta's online accounts were compromised.
 
And sly posts bullshit.

At least I call bullshit.

Let's see proof.
 
Putin hates Hillary almost as much as Denny....it makes sense in a Romanian teenaged sort of way
 
Finally, there's the Apple hacking that obtained photos of celebrities, compromising photos that made the headlines.

Apple didn't get hacked. The hackers brute force tried millions (if needed) or billions of login/password credentials on Apple's icloud site until they found what the celebrity chose as his/her password.

Again, the celebrities may have used the same credentials on gmail, their banking sites, etc.

All this is identity theft.
 
FYI, from SPD's link:

Determining whether that is true is part of the ongoing investigations. CBS News has confirmed that congressional investigators are looking into whether Trump campaign associates obtained information from hacked voter databases during the election.

So far there is no evidence of that, but it is a sign that the congressional investigations are expanding.
 
Denny Crane said:
At least I call bullshit.
Click to expand...
you made some really good points ...I'm sure hackers are like mosquitos around the net..the point of the subject is Putin's directive to keep Hillary away...looks to me like it worked and hackers can probably veil their sources pretty well but I don't know much about it...but even with Chinese and N Korean attacks...Russian attempts at election tampering is a serious issue....we should all see it as something more than bullshit
 
riverman said:
you made some really good points ...I'm sure hackers are like mosquitos around the net..the point of the subject is Putin's directive to keep Hillary away...looks to me like it worked and hackers can probably veil their sources pretty well but I don't know much about it...but even with Chinese and N Korean attacks...Russian attempts at election tampering is a serious issue....we should all see it as something more than bullshit
Click to expand...

I will call bullshit until I see convincing proof.

I don't believe Obama's outgoing people. Occam's Razor says they're willing to plant excuses for Clinton losing. Occam's Razor also suggests our spy agencies are willing to spy on us, congress, and our allies' leaders, and lie to us.

Proof isn't some report, it's objective evidence. Nobody's provided it, just "it's secret how we know." That's not proof.

I have no doubt Putin loves to punk the US at every opportunity. He punked Obama a few times (like how he got a base in Syria, etc.). He'll punk Trump if he can, too.

I don't doubt he wants to ridicule our government and many of our core beliefs.

Again, that's not proof.
 
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