An issue of attempted cyber attacks or a misunderstanding? That is the question being asked by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp who says the possible attacks came from an unlikely culprit, the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have documented ten attempts with the Homeland Security iP address into the Secretary of State’s system,” Kemp told us. “There still remains ore questions than answers and really the ball in my opinion is in the Department of Homeland Security’s court.”
Kemp has written a letter to President Elect Donald Trump asking for an investigation. The Department of Homeland Security told the Associated Press there was nothing sinister but rather mistakes made by a contractor that worked for another agency. It said the contractor was simply trying access information on the Secretary of State’s website to check licenses of potential new employees.
Kemp however isn’t yet convinced when it comes to that story. “The explanations they’ve given us have not satisfied our IT folks,” he said “They hit the system on election day, the day before election day, just some really interesting dates that make you wonder just exactly what was gong on here.”
Kemp says several so called hacking dates coincide with dates that he was publicly critical of Homeland Security in terms of its election security plans and efforts to terms of making state’s election systems part of what’s termed “critical infrastructure.” Kemp says on one date when he testified at a public hearing expressing his concerns, there was a reported hacking attempt.
Kemp said voting machines were never in jeopardy but if it had been a true cyber attack that information from voter registration records could have been compromised. My priority has been protecting Georgian’s personal information and data and that we’re gong to keep demanding answers until we find out exactly what happened, that’s what our mission is,” he said.
