CNNWashington (CNN) – Chinese hackers tapped into the Federal Election Commission’s website during the federal government shutdown in October, a report released Tuesday by an investigative news organization says.
The report from the Center for Public Integrity, one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations, indicates that hackers crashed the FEC’s computer systems, which compiles federal election campaign finance information like contributions to parties and candidates, and how those billions of dollars are spent in each election by candidates, political parties, and independent groups such as political action committees.
The attack came as nearly all of the FEC’s employees, except for the presidential-appointed commissioners, were furloughed due to the government shutdown, with not even one staffer being deemed “necessary to the prevention of imminent threats” to federal property. And it came a few months after an independent auditor hired by the government warned that the FEC’s computer systems were at “high risk” to infiltration, a charge the commission disputed.
“Hackers from China, in Russia, Syria, you name it are constantly targeting U.S. websites. But what happened here with the Federal Election Commission, which is the independent watchdog sponsored by the government to keep elections fair and free, effectively got hit about as hard as it ever has gotten hit,” David Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“It came as the FEC had absolutely no regular employees actually serving at the agency because of the government shutdown. It was one of the agencies that actually went completely dark during the government shutdown, only had the commissioners themselves manning the doors, manning the systems. They are not IT experts by any stretch of the imagination,” Levinthal told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
The CPI says the hacking incident was confirmed by three government officials involved in an ongoing investigation that included the Department of Homeland Security.
“Here you have for days at a time, the FEC’s website – which is part and parcel of the agency’s mission to provide Americans with the ability to access information about their elections, access information about political campaigns and candidates – and nobody in America could do it during that time. So it was a huge black eye, not only for the agency but for the country’s government in general,” Levinthal added.
The FEC is not commenting at this time about the hacking incident.
Following the hacking incident, the FEC in November said it had moved certain data servers off-line and replace them with less powerful backup servers, that the agency said would slow the ability for users to navigate the website.
CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report
““Hackers from China, in Russia, Syria, you name it are constantly targeting U.S. websites. But what happened here with the Federal Election Commission, which is the independent watchdog sponsored by the government to keep elections fair and free, effectively got hit about as hard as it ever has gotten hit,” David Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity said on CNN’s “New Day.””
Yep and we keep using that stupid old box called a computer to store all our information on and giving an open invitation to all government hackers around the world, rather than easily putting it on paper and filing it away somewhere in an office and making it harder for those spies to get the information for themselves. Good Job!
Hey, let’s continue to use Diebold machines instead of paper ballots! That’ll fix everything. They’ll never think to hack in those things, either.
Dumbasses!
Technology will truly be our downfall.
Don’t get me wrong. Computers are good for some things, but not for every single facet of our lives. It is a tool to help our lives, NOT run it!
And my pet peeve are those ridiculously, insane, automated phone systems for EVERY company you try to call up on.
“Press 1 for English. Para Espanol el numero dos. What would you like to do? Option 1, Option 2 or Option 3?”
I would like you to GET ME A LIVE PERSON ON THE F**KING PHONE, you stupid piece of shit! How simple is that? How come you don’t give me that option? How come you hang up on me if I don’t go through your step by step automated formula like a robot? Yea, great customer service! NOT!
And if you’re worried that I’ll be waiting, then how’s that MY problem?
HIRE MORE PEOPLE you, greedy, lazy, Fascist piece of shit! There’s 100 million unemployed. I think you can afford and find someone to answer a damn phone!
(Grr! This shit just pisses me off and I’m ranting again)