Federal Agencies Hacked Before, During ‘Most Secure’ Election in US History

Several federal government agencies were hacked and compromised before and during the 2020 presidential election, which the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) claimed was “the most secure in American history“.

Despite this claim, several witnesses have come forward to claim that there were severe vulnerabilities in the US election system including potential for the widely-used Dominion election software to be hacked.

For years, there have been critiques of the Dominion voting system often from Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren:

Following the 2020 election, Sidney Powell has led the investigation into the voting software, which allegedly was controlled by foreign actors switching votes from Trump to Biden and deleting Trump votes.

Witnesses reported that Dominion systems were connected to the Internet, exposing it to fraud. Phil Waldron, a retired Army Colonel, said at the public hearing on election fraud in Arizona:

Our teams looked at spirographs on the Dominion network on Election Day and showed the increased web traffic, Internet traffic on Election Day for Dominion servers,” he said, adding later: “In a nutshell, these systems are not what you’ve been told, if you’ve been told anything. They are connected to the Internet. There is no transparency of how the voter information is processed, moved, and stored. And, as a matter of fact, these companies have refused to allow any type of inspection into their code and they always decry, it’s our IP, it’s IP protection.

An investigation in Antrim County, Michigan concluded, “the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”

CISA has reported that several government agencies including the Treasury Department were hacked in a months-long campaign of cyber warfare.

A sophisticated hacking group backed by a foreign government stole information from the U.S. Treasury Department and a U.S. agency responsible for deciding policy around the internet and telecommunications, according to people familiar with the matter.

Shortly after, CISA ordered an emergency directive on the breach.

The CISA statement reads:

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) tonight issued Emergency Directive 21-01, in response to a known compromise involving SolarWinds Orion products that are currently being exploited by malicious actors. This Emergency Directive calls on all federal civilian agencies to review their networks for indicators of compromise and disconnect or power down SolarWinds Orion products immediately.  

“The compromise of SolarWinds’ Orion Network Management Products poses unacceptable risks to the security of federal networks,” said CISA Acting Director Brandon Wales. “Tonight’s directive is intended to mitigate potential compromises within federal civilian networks, and we urge all our partners—in the public and private sectors—to assess their exposure to this compromise and to secure their networks against any exploitation.”  

This is the fifth Emergency Directive issued by CISA under the authorities granted by Congress in the Cybersecurity Act of 2015. All agencies operating SolarWinds products should provide a completion report to CISA by 12pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday December 14, 2020.  

It is now being reported that Dominion Voting Systems uses the compromised SolarWinds network: