Hackers target US FEC system, disrupting campaign finance disclosures days before midterms

NEW YORK, USA – The US Federal Election Commission’s website was targeted by a hacker or hackers, according to an email seen by Reuters, disrupting the agency’s electronic filings system a week before the November 3 elections. The hack comes as so-called super PACs and dark money groups spend record sums in the final days of the races. The elections will determine whether President Donald Trump’s Republicans maintain their majorities in Congress for the next two years. In a statement, the FEC said, “At this time, the FEC’s electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT staff are actively working to restore service. ” The FEC, which tracks the spending of candidates and political committees, said users could still search the website for past reports.

A status message posted by the FEC said its filing system had been down since around 10 pm ET on Monday (0200 GMT; 10:00 am Tuesday Philippine time). Around 8 pm ET on Tuesday (0000 GMT; 8:00 am Wednesday Philippine time), a new status message said the issue “has been identified and a fix is being implemented. ” The FEC did not immediately return a message seeking comment and a notice on its website said its filing system remained offline. The FEC does not play a role in administering US elections and the outage should have no effect on voters’ ability to cast ballots. The outage does prevent organizations from filing the FEC’s 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports, which show how much political groups and others are spending on specific races. “I’ve never seen this in 26 years,” said Steven Mele, president and CEO at political finance compliance firm MBA Consulting Group. The FEC posted the notice to its website after campaign finance officers could not file mandatory reports late on Monday. “We have a bad actor…