Russian-speaking hackers on Wednesday claimed responsibility for knocking offline state government websites in Colorado, Kentucky and Mississippi, among other states – the latest example of apparent politically motivated hacking following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Kentucky Board of Elections’ website, which posts information on how to register to vote, was also temporarily offline on Wednesday, but it was not immediately clear what caused that outage. The board of elections’ website is also managed by the Kentucky government, though the hackers did not specifically list the board as a target.
The websites in Colorado, Kentucky and Mississippi were sporadically available Wednesday morning and afternoon as administrators appeared to try to bring them online.
It’s an example of the type of digital disruption or distraction that US officials and election officials are preparing for ahead of the November midterm elections. Websites like that of the Kentucky Board of Elections are not directly involved in the casting or counting of votes, but they can provide useful information for voters.
“The [hacking] campaign does not appear to specifically target U.S. elections infrastructure, though election-related websites can be indirectly or directly impacted through the broader operation,” the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), a nonprofit-backed threat-sharing center, said in an email to election officials obtained by CNN.
The hacking group claiming responsibility for Wednesday’s website outage is known as Killnet and stepped up their activity after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine to target organizations in NATO countries. They are a loose band of so-called “hacktivists” — politically motivated hackers who support the Kremlin but whose ties to that government are unknown.
