The Democratic National Committee informed the FBI of an apparent hacking attempt of its voter database earlier this week, after a security research firm notified the DNC that someone had created a fake log-in page for Votebuilder, which hosts the party’s voter information. The ostensible gambit was to trick Democratic officials into entering their log-ins and passwords, and then use said log-in information to access the party’s proprietary data. The attack appeared to be sophisticated, as the fraudulent log-in page was nearly indistinguishable from the actual one.
In reality, the log-in page was so realistic because it was created by the Democratic Party itself — specifically, the Michigan Democratic Party. To test their party’s preparedness for a cyberattack (like the one that rocked it in 2016) Michigan Democrats enlisted hackers to do “penetration testing” on the voter file without informing the DNC, the Washington Post reports.
Always better to be safe than sorry — though, in this case, the DNC is probably both.
