(Adnkronos) – An attempted cyberattack has hit the systems of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the US federal agency tasked with overseeing election campaign financing, one week before the November 3 midterm elections. Politico reports this, citing an informed source, according to whom the agency’s cybersecurity experts promptly identified the intrusion attempts and deactivated some sections of the electronic system used by candidates to report donations and electoral expenses. The interruption, described as “limited and localized,” caused the temporary unavailability of some services.
At the moment, the identity of those responsible for the attack is not known, which according to the source could have been carried out using advanced artificial intelligence models equipped with offensive cyber capabilities. FEC spokesperson Myles Martin confirmed that technical staff are working to restore services, specifying that the public system for consulting electoral data has not been compromised. The agency also assured that no penalties will be applied to campaigns that submit declarations within 24 hours of the platform’s restoration.
The incident should not have repercussions on the security of the November 3 vote, as the FEC is not involved in either ballot counting or election organization, but exclusively in the supervision of political financing. The agency has also been in a state of substantial operational paralysis since last year, following the departure of several commissioners and President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove then-chair Ellen Weintraub, which left it without the necessary quorum to make decisions.
