Everything is moving quickly after the leaked NSA report into Russia’s election hacking efforts was published by The Intercept. Shortly after the public became aware of the highly classified report’s existence (which states Russia tried to hack voting machines and conducted phishing scams on election officials), the Department of Justice reported it had arrested the leaker, Reality Winner, over the weekend. According to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, this story is far from over.
According to USA Today, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) says Russia’s hacking efforts were “broader” than what was said in the leaked report:
“I don’t believe they got into changing actual voting outcomes,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in an interview. “But the extent of the attacks is much broader than has been reported so far.” He said he was pushing intelligence agencies to declassify the names of those states hit to help put electoral systems on notice before the midterm voting in 2018.
“None of these actions from the Russians stopped on Election Day,” he warned.
According to the NSA report, one supplier of voting software was cyberattacked by Russian military intelligence and more than 100 election officials were sent suspicious, deceptive emails days before the general election in November.
According to Warner, the states that were targeted are aware of the hack attempts, but the information remains classified. Warner said that he did not want to embarrass any one state but seeks to prevent a repeat in future elections.
“This is a case to make sure that the American public writ large realizes that if we don’t get ahead of this, this same kind of intervention could take place in 2018 and definitely will take place in 2020,” Warner said Tuesday.
(via USA Today)