Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp has sent a letter to Jeh Johnson, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, demanding to know why they tried to access Georgia’s voter information and systems. The effort to penetrate the election system was unsuccessful. But the very attempt to infiltrate Georgia’s system is a violation of federal law. Jeh Johnson and Loretta Lynch won’t be around to hinder prosecution. Kemp made a point of the fact that neither he nor anyone else in the State of Georgia gave the DHS permission to try to gain access to their system.
It just seems funny that DHS tried to tap into the voting of Georgia, a state that many liberals though Hillary could swing to her column. Of course that was before they found out they couldn’t get into the system. Can’t you just hear the whirl of the shredders Already?
Kemp wrote:
“At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration testing or security scans of our network. Moreover, your department has not contacted my office since this unsuccessful incident to alert us of any security event that would require testing or scanning of our network.”
Kemp said this was “especially odd and concerning” given that he is a member of the U.S. Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group run by the federal agency.
Homeland Security spokesman Scott McConnell said the department got Kemp’s letter and is “looking into the matter.”
“DHS takes the trust of our public and private sector partners seriously, and we will respond to Secretary Kemp directly,” McConnell said.
Forty-eight states accepted offers by the Homeland Security Department to scan their networks ahead of the presidential elections. The scans looked for vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit by hackers. The U.S. also described how states could patch their networks to make it more difficult to penetrate them.
Georgia was among two states that did not accept the department’s offer. It said it had contracted with an outside agency and already implemented protective measures.
“They offered to provide these services, we declined it and then we determine they attempted to hack our system,” said David Dove, chief of staff and legal counsel for Kemp’s office.
Dove said the state was alerted at the time the attack occurred.