Iranian Hackers’ Infiltration of a US Election Website in 2020
American officials said on Monday at a cybersecurity conference that the country’s military discovered in 2020 that a group of Iranian hackers had infiltrated a local government website that was on the verge of announcing election results. They say that this cyber infiltration was neutralized before the vote count.
These officials stated that although the voting machines and the votes themselves were not affected during the breach, the hackers could have taken the website offline or posted fake results on it, which would have undermined public trust in the actual results.
According to The Washington Post, General William Hartman, commander of the Cyber National Mission Force under the US Cyber Command, said at the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco that this development could have led to the perception that the votes were manipulated.
He did not specify which website was targeted. The Washington Post writes that the issue of Iranian hackers infiltrating this website was confidential until now.
Mr. Hartman said that this group of hackers is known as the Pioneer Kitten.
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