U.S. authorities found no evidence of Russian hackers’ influence on the presidential election

U.S. authorities found no evidence that hackers affiliated with foreign governments were able to block voters from voting, alter votes, interfere with the counting or timely transmission of election results, alter technical aspects of the voting process, or otherwise compromise the integrity of voter registration or ballot information submitted during the 2020 federal election.

This is reported in a joint report by the US Department of Justice (including the FBI) ​​and the Department of Homeland Security (including the Cyber ​​and Infrastructure Security Agency).

According to the report, “as part of Russia’s and Iran’s extensive campaigns against critical infrastructure, the security of several networks to manage some election functions was indeed compromised. But it had no meaningful impact on the integrity of voter data, the ability to vote, the counting of votes, or the timely transmission of election results. Iran’s claims to undermine public confidence in the U.S. election infrastructure were false or exaggerated”.

However, experts have identified several incidents in which malicious actors linked to the governments of Russia, China and Iran significantly affected the security of networks linked to U.S. political organizations, candidates and campaigns during the 2020 federal election. In most cases, it is unclear whether the attackers sought access to the networks for foreign political interests or for operations related to election interference.

In a number of cases, the attackers collected at least some information that they might have published in order to exert influence. However, no evidence of publishing, modifying or destroying this information was found.

“We found no evidence (either through intelligence gathering on the foreign attackers themselves, through monitoring the physical security and cybersecurity of voting systems across the country, or through post-election audits or any other means) that a foreign government or other parties compromised the election infrastructure to manipulate the election results,” the report authors summarized.