Alabama Democrat Claims Russians Tried To Hack Her Campaign Website
Tabitha Isner, the Democratic candidate running in Alabama’s second Congressional District in this year’s midterm elections, claims Russians tried to hack her campaign website.
Isner shared her concerns with the Business Insider, asserting that hackers had attempted to break into her website over 1,400 times, with 1,100 of those attacks tracing back to Russia.
Isner told the Business Insider that she was first made aware of a possible threat by the web hosting company she uses. Company officials called Isner, recommending that she upgrade to a more advanced hosting package, since her website could crash in the future, due to a huge spike in traffic. Initially, Isner was taken aback, but then she decided to alert her web administrator.
The administrator took a look at the traffic logs, discovering a large number of Russian IP addresses, all of which had been blocked by the website. Luckily for the Democratic Party candidate, none of the Russian hacker attacks were successful. Isner said that her campaign website had not been compromised, but expressed concern over the lack of attention she claims to have been given by law enforcement, the FBI in particular.
“I spent a lot of time on hold. I got transferred to a variety of different people,” Isner told the BI, describing the unpleasant experience.
“My website is not the end of the world, it’s not the most important thing in this democracy, obviously. My broader concern is I doubt I’m the only one [being targeted by hackers] and I wonder what other campaigns aren’t paying attention.”
Candidates, Isner added, are “left to their own devices,” so the Democratic candidate running in Alabama’s second Congressional District thinks that there should be more resources for candidates, in order to prevent cyber attacks.
Unsure whether the Russians are still trying to hack our elections? Here's what our campaign website has been experiencing over the last week. #Russia #Hacking pic.twitter.com/XCKkkrDRDM
— Tabitha Isner (@TabithaK) July 18, 2018
Dem candidate in Alabama says Russians tried to hack her campaign site https://t.co/T296IEmtik pic.twitter.com/DX8DI1t1eq
— The Hill (@thehill) August 6, 2018
As The Hill pointed out, Isner’s comments come amid warnings from top U.S. intelligence officials that Russians are seeking to meddle in the November midterm elections.
In May, as the New York Post reported, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that Russians might want to destabilize American democracy once again, vowing that the Trump administration would be willing to take significant security measures against such attacks.
More recently, as the Inquisitr reported, Facebook announced that it had identified another coordinated dissinformation campaign on its platform. The social network discovered, and removed, dozens of fake accounts and web pages, but it did not tie the accounts to Russia. However, the company reportedly told two Capitol Hill officials that the Kremlin was possibly involved in the disinformation campaign.
