Georgia’s Voting Infrastructure Becomes the First Ransomware Target in 2020 Elections
The US voting system was under a ransomware attack earlier in October. The rumours are true and Georgia’s Hall County was the victim. The ransomware attacked government systems of the county and key voting infrastructures have been impacted.
A few details were released by the officials about the October 7 attack and stated that critical Hall County Government networks systems have been affected. According to today’s CNN reports, this incident may be the first ransomware attack this political season that hit the election infrastructure.
The ransomware attack took down Hall County’s voting precinct map and voter signature database https://t.co/30D9ngNfbK
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) October 23, 2020
Katie Crumley, Hall County’s spokesperson said that the voter signature database of the county and voting precinct map have been adversely impacted. However, the county is working to bring affected systems back online along with the database and the map. Fortunately, the voting process for the masses has not been affected due to network problems.
It is being said that the fraudsters may not have targeted the voting systems only, since many services of the county were disrupted including email and phone. During an interview, Brett Callow from Emsisoft stated that the local government authorities of the US have been a victim of ransomware attacks at a rate of three attacks every week. It is believed that voting systems were collateral damage to fraudsters’ attempts.
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