The big news is that a leaker of top secret intelligence information has been arrested. But what she leaked is unsettling.
The National Security Association report given to a reporter by a 25-year-old intelligence contractor named Reality Leigh Winner documents a Russian hack of a company that provides voting technology software, including systems that handle absentee voting and voter registration lists. The Russian operation also targeted local election officials. This took place shortly before election day.
No, nothing implicates Donald Trump, and the effects of the hack, if any, are unknown. But this would make it appear that the Russians were attempting to wreak havoc with American democracy in a more direct way than was previously thought.
From Chris Perez, Federal worker busted for leaking top-secret NSA docs on Russian hacking | New York Post:
A 25-year-old Federal contractor was charged Monday with leaking a top secret NSA report — detailing how Russian military hackers targeted US voting systems just days before the election.
The highly classified intelligence document, published Monday by The Intercept, describes how Russia managed to infiltrate America’s voting infrastructure using a spear-phishing email scheme that targeted local government officials and employees. . . .
Specifically, operatives from the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, are said to have targeted employees at a US election software company last August and then again in October.
While the name of the company is unclear, the report refers to an undisclosed product made by VR Systems — an electronic voting services and equipment vendor in Florida that has contracts in eight states, including New York. . . .
According to the NSA, the hackers struck on either October 31 or November 1, sending spear-fishing emails to at least 122 different email addresses “associated with named local government organizations.”
They were also likely sent to officials “involved in the management of voter registration systems,” the report says.
The emails were said to have contained weaponized Microsoft Word attachments, which were set up to appear as unharmful documentation for the VR Systems’ EViD voter database — but were actually embedded with automated software commands that are secretly turned on as soon as the user opens the document.
The hack ultimately gave the Russians a back door and the ability to deliver any sort of malware or malicious software they wanted, the report says.
[Keep reading. . .]
Illustration: “Voting Screen–cartoon” by DonkeyHotey, Flickr, Creative Commons license
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