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FBI: Election officials across nine states targeted in phishing campaign

The FBI has warned that at least nine states had their elections officials targeted by an invoice-themed phishing campaign last October, CyberScoop reports. Attackers have leveraged compromised email addresses to deliver messages with similar attachments on at least three separate days in an effort to exfiltrate login credentials and may have had "sustained, undetected" election administrator systems access but the success of the operation remains uncertain, according to the FBI warning. "The FBI judges cyber actors will likely continue or increase their targeting of US election officials with phishing campaigns in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections," said the notice. The phishing campaign should prompt continued vigilance among election administrators, said Democracy Fund Senior Advisor on Elections Tammy Patrick. "We must focus on the 2022 tasks at hand: implementation of new district lines and the precincting of voters; securing proper resources, poll workers, and facilities for the primaries (and the general) to properly serve voters; and ensure that attempts like this are not successful," Patrick said.

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