https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/florida-russia-hacking-election.html
By Frances Robles
The New York Times
April 26, 2019
It was the day before the 2016 presidential election, and at the Volusia County
elections office, near Florida’s Space Coast, workers were so busy that they
had fallen behind on their correspondence.
Lisa Lewis, the supervisor of elections, stumbled on an important email sent to
her and three others in the office, by then a week old, that appeared to be
from VR Systems, the vendor that sells electronic voter list equipment to
nearly every county in the state. “Please take a look at the instructions for
our modernised products,” it said, using British spelling and offering an
attachment. Something about the email seemed off.
“It was from Gmail,” Ms. Lewis said. “They don’t have Gmail.”
Ms. Lewis, it turned out, was right to be suspicious. Though it had VR Systems’
distinctive logo, with a red V and a blue R, the email contained a malicious
Trojan virus, and it originated not from the elections vendor but from the
Russian military intelligence unit known as the G.R.U. The email had been sent
to 120 elections email accounts across Florida.
Also buried in Ms. Lewis’s inbox was a warning from VR’s chief operating
officer, flagging the dangerous spearphishing attempt and warning all his
customers not to click on it.
But, it now appears, someone did.
[...]
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