Foreign hackers attempted to restrict voters in Georgia from requesting absentee ballots for the upcoming presidential election in a targeted cyberattack this month, according to state elections officials.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office said Wednesday that its cyber defenses thwarted an attack after thousands of IP addresses from different countries accessed an election website — which allows voters in the battleground state to cast their absentee ballots ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Allows to request – traffic with fake, CNN reported.
Gabe Sterling, chief operating officer of the Georgia state office that oversees elections, believes the attack came from a foreign country, explaining that it contained “signs of a foreign power or foreign entity (actions) or gestures of a foreign power.” But were.” ,
Sterling said, “Talking to experts it felt like this was a probing attack, ‘Hey, if we do this, what will they do in response?'”
According to CNN, the source of the breach has not yet been confirmed by federal officials.
The attack — which did not disrupt voters’ ability to request their ballots — comes amid record-breaking early turnout in the battleground state.
Early voting in Georgia began on October 15.
“It slowed down our systems a little bit, but it never stopped our systems from working,” Sterling told CNN.
The Peach State is widely considered one of seven key battleground states in the 2024 cycle, having gone for President Biden in 2020 after supporting Republicans in the last six presidential races.
(TagstoTranslate)US News(T)2024 Presidential Election(T)Georgia(T)Hack(T)Hackers
