A National Security Agency worker's arrest in Georgia this week is shedding light on the potential connection to a Volusia County attempted voting hack a week before the presidential election.
A vendor who serves dozens of elections offices across the state alerted staff to a phishing email in November.
The hackers duplicated the logo for the vendor they tried to impersonate but it didn't work.
“They warned us about it, we didn't open it,” said Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Lisa Lewis.
Lewis said she and three other managers received the email Nov. 7, but they all knew not to open it.
The vendor, called VR, not VR Elections as shown on the logo of the scam email, instructs recipients to look at instructions in an attachment.
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“On Nov. 1 2016, we received an email from our vendor warning us about that. If we did receive it, do not open the attachment,” Lewis said.
Since no one opened it, no one took a second look at that email until the arrest of Reality Winner unveiled who may be behind the phishing scam.
The NSA contractor is accused of leaking a Russian cyberthreat via email in the days leading up to the election.
Lewis was shocked to learn her office might have been a target.
”Nothing was compromised, which was the main thing here,” she said.
IT is continuing to run tests to make absolutely certain of that.
Lewis wants voters to know that the vendor that was targeted does not handle any ballots.
“VR, our vendor, that warned us about this has absolutely nothing to do with the equipment or the ballot counting process. They handle our voter registration database and that's all that they do,” she said.
That voter registration database is public information.
Initially, Lewis believed their office received four of these emails, but her IT workers found a fifth one from Oct. 31 that was sent to the previous supervisor of elections. It was not opened.
Cox Media Group
