Yesterday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) claimed that someone tried to hack their digital voter database system. But, hours later, they had to backtrack and deny their own claim.
What happened? According to the liberal New York Times, officials at the DNC claimed their Voterbuilder database system was aggressively attacked, and added, “hackers set up a fake page that mimicked the party’s login page for its voter-registration website, a tactic that could gather names, passwords and other credentials of those using the voter database.”
Bob Lord, who serves as the Chief Security Officer at the DNC opined, “This attempt is further proof that there are constant threats as we head into midterm elections, and we must remain vigilant in order to prevent future attacks.”
Was it Russia, China, or some domestic hacker trying to mess with the DNC? Hardly.
They were forced to retract the claim, and the hacking is now being called a “test.”
A suspected attempt to hack into the Democratic National Committee’s voter database was actually a cybersecurity test, the organization said https://t.co/FkxUgLNv50
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 23, 2018
As ABC News reported: “After saying on Wednesday that it had experienced an attempted hack into its voter database, the Democratic National Committee backtracked late Wednesday night, calling the actions a ‘test.’ The DNC said in a statement that it now believes a phishing attempt that was part of an unauthorized test on its VoteBuilder system was performed by a third-party.”
The DNC went so far as to contact law enforcement after the page was discovered by DigitalOcean (a cloud-services provider) and LookOut (an online security firm).
What makes the situation curious is Lord’s retraction statement: “The test, which mimicked several attributes of actual attacks on the Democratic Party’s voter file, was not authorized by the DNC, VoteBuilder nor any of our vendors.”
Wouldn’t one assume the Cheif Security Officer would know that such a test was happening?
The DNC has been severely lagging in fundraising compared to the record success of the RNC this cycle. Their debt has been so severe that they have taken out multiple loans to cover operational costs.
Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers’ newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share on social media, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.
