The FBI is investigating two separate hacks on Arizona and Illinois’ state election systems. The investigation of Arizona’s voter registration system has been going on since June when the FBI notified Arizona officials that Russians were behind the attack. While the attack did not result in any compromised systems for Arizona’s election system, the FBI described the threat as “credible” and “an eight on a scale of 10,” according to The Washington Post. Whether the attacks were from Russian cybercriminals or state-sponsored hackers is currently known, but Arizona was forced to shut down the state’s voter registration system for a week.
The intrusion into Illinois’ election system in June and July, however, did result in some damage. While the hackers did not alter any data, personal information from “fewer than 200,000 voters” was compromised. Fortunately no information regarding voter history or voter signatures were captured but Ken Menzel, general counsel for the elections board, did say personal information such as drivers’ license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers were possibly accessed.