Did Russia Hack U.S. Election? NSA Details Attempts To Compromise Election Systems, Report Says

A report from the U.S. National Security Agency obtained by the Intercept says the Russian military executed a cyberattack on an American voting software supplier and sent phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials days before the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The document, provided anonymously to the Intercept, is dated May 5 and gives a detailed look at U.S. intelligence agency insights into suspected attempts to interfere with the election — though it provides little in terms of connections between the Russian government and the Donald Trump campaign or whether it had an impact on the results of the election.

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The report says the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, known as the GRU, was behind the attempt to compromise election-related software and hardware, including private sector companies that manufacture devices to maintain and verify voter rolls.

The NSA says Russian actors attempted to use data obtained by its attacks on those companies to phish local government officials and organizations.

The report says the hackers first targeted an unnamed U.S. election software company by sending emails purporting to be from Google requesting employees verify their account credentials. In reality, doing so would hand over the accounts to the Russians.

With access to the internal systems of the voting software firm, the hackers were able to create fake documents that appeared valid and posed as employees of the compromised software firm.

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The GRU set up a Gmail account designed to appear as though it belonged to the voting company and sent emails to local governments. Those messages contained a Microsoft Word document that acted as a front to hide malicious software that would install itself on the victim’s computer if the document was opened. The attack would have provided “persistent access” to the compromised computer and allowed the Russians to spy on user activity.

The attack on local government was believed to have taken place on Oct. 31 or Nov. 1, just over a week before the U.S. presidential election. It targeted 122 email addresses associated with local government organizations

While the NSA document shows in great detail the efforts taken by Russian hackers to compromise U.S. election systems, the agency does not provide much by way of definitive conclusions about the attack’s success.

The agency’s report said it is “unknown” whether the phishing attack launched against local governments was successful and offers little insight into what effect hacking into the accounts of officials may have had on the election.

The NSA also does not draw any conclusions as to whether the Russian attack had any effect on the outcome of the presidential election.

Despite the lack of conclusive impact, the NSA report confidently states there were in fact attempts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. election, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent denial of any meddling on a state level.