Hackers Target US Campaign Finance Website Days Before Midterms
The Federal Election Commission (FEC), the federal body that handles filings on money spent in federal campaigns, has temporarily suspended its web services after what it described as an attempt to break into its systems. The disruption comes days before the US midterm elections on November 3.
In an email to campaign compliance firms, the agency wrote: "We have a bad actor trying to breach FEC systems. As a result, we've had to temporarily suspend our web-facing services." An FEC electronic filings officer sent the message on Monday night, according to reporting on the email.
The outage affects organizations that must file 24- and 48-hour spending reports, which track money spent on specific races. Those filings are now unavailable through the FEC system.
A status message on the FEC website showed the system was down after 10:15 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. An update posted on Tuesday at 8:17 p.m. Eastern said: "The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented."
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal agency responsible for protecting critical systems, referred questions about the incident to the FEC.
FEC Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum said the incident had nothing to do with voter files or voter registration, which are maintained by individual states. She said the FEC handles only federal campaign finance filings. The commission does not play a role in running US elections.
The incident comes as campaign spending reaches record levels. Al Jazeera reported that the country was preparing for its most expensive elections ever at the time of the breach attempt. AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising, puts spending on ads and future reservations for the midterms at roughly $11.21 billion so far.
Brendan Glavin, research director at OpenSecrets, a group that tracks money in politics, said super PACs and dark money groups, which spend on politics outside candidates' own campaigns, averaged $50 million per day over the past week.
