According to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp, “Foul play was discovered when a hacker failed at attempting to breach the firewall that protected the Georgia voter’s registration database. The IP address in question was discovered to originate from the Department of Homeland Security itself.”
On a Facebook post on Thursday, Kemp said he has “sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding to know why.”
In an interview with WSB-TV in Atlanta, Kemp said to Channel 2’s investigative reporter Aaron Diamant that he was “mad as hell.”
“It’s outrageous to think about our own federal government is doing this to us,” Kemp said.
“We’re demanding answers to some of these questions, you know? Are they doing this to other states? Was it authorized or not? Who ordered this? Why is it being done and why weren’t we notified?” he added.
Aaron Diamant contacted former FBI and Department of Defense Cyber Security analyst Willis McDonald to ask if this was possible, and McDonald seemed to believe that a DHS hacking attempt on a state is too far out of the realm of possibility.
“It would actually be inconceivable to think that the federal government would start attempting to break into a state agency without any coordination,” said McDonald.
Instead, McDonald suggested that the hacker was not at all associated with the DHS, and used their identity as a virtual mask stating “it’s fairly common to see something like that happening.”
According to the DHS, they have received Kemp’s letter and are looking into the matter. When they find a solution, they will contact Kemp directly.