Hackers target US campaign finance system days before midterm elections
Summary
Hackers reportedly targeted the Federal Election Commission’s website, forcing it to suspend online services and disrupting campaign spending disclosures days before the November 3 midterm elections. The FEC said it had identified the issue and was implementing a fix; the outage affected campaign finance reporting, not voter registration or election administration.Key Facts
- An email attributed to the FEC said a malicious actor was trying to breach its systems and that web-facing services had been temporarily suspended.
- The outage prevented organizations from filing 24- and 48-hour reports on campaign spending.
- The FEC website showed a service disruption beginning after 10:15 p.m. Eastern on Monday, and an update at 8:17 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday said a fix was being implemented.
- The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency referred questions about the incident to the FEC.
- FEC Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum said the incident did not involve voter files or voter registration, which are maintained by states.
- AdImpact estimated that spending on advertising and future reservations for the 2026 midterms had reached about $11.21 billion, above its reported $11.2 billion total for the 2024 elections.
- OpenSecrets research director Brendan Glavin said super PACs and dark-money groups had spent an average of $50 million a day over the past week.
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