Illinois’ elections board requests confirmation Mueller identified hackers in data breach

The Illinois state election board said Friday that it is likely the state referred to in special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest indictment as having been hacked into by Russian intelligence officers, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Illinois officials said Friday that they had requested confirmation from the Justice Department that it was the state mentioned in the indictment.

The hack has been public knowledge for nearly two years, with the FBI issuing an alert about the cyber attack in August 2016, one month after it took place.

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“We are grateful that DOJ has identified who the perpetrators are,” state election board spokesman Matt Dietrich said, according to the Tribune. “We never had anything on paper until today, and even then we don’t have a firm statement saying ‘Yes, it’s you,’ although we think it’s more than likely ‘yes.’ ”

Mueller charged a Russian intelligence officer with hacking into a state’s elections board website and sending spear-phishing emails to state elections officials. 

The indictment states that hackers obtained private information on about 500,000 voters in the cyberattack, including names, dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers.

Dietrich said officials think that number is closer to 76,000 than 500,000, but that federal officials may have “arrived at using a different methodology prescribed under federal criminal code.”

He added that none of the notified voters have reported suspicious activity to the state, according to the Tribune.

Twelve Russian intelligence officers were charged Friday in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee.