Cyberattack targeting Georgia's absentee ballot website was thwarted, state officials say
The office of Georgia’s secretary of state repelled a cyberattack earlier this month that appeared to be an attempt to shut down the website voters use to request absentee ballots ahead of the election.
The threat was discovered after the agency noticed hundreds of thousands of attempts to access the site on Oct. 14, one day before early voting began in Georgia, the secretary of state's office confirmed with USA TODAY.
While cyber security experts were able to thwart the attack, the secretary of state's office said it still does not know for certain who was behind it. Gabriel Sterling, chief operating office for Georgia’s secretary of state’s office, told CNN the threat may have originated from a foreign country.
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Officials: Attempted cyberattack did not disrupt absentee ballot website
CNN first reported the cyberattack attempt Wednesday night after election officials confirmed to the outlet that hundreds of thousands of IP addresses from numerous countries flooded the Georgia website.
The alleged attack involved more than 420,000 nearly simultaneous access attempts from around the world, the secretary of state's office confirmed to USA TODAY after it was previously reported by WSB-TV, a broadcaster in Atlanta.
Sterling, which oversees elections in the battleground state, posted both outlets' reporting in separate tweets Wednesday night on social media site X.
"The attack was detected and mitigated quickly," Sterling said in the first post, adding in the second post, "this was a big win for our cyber security team and our partners."
Sterling told CNN that the attempted attack did not disrupt voters’ ability to request ballots.
A spokesman for the office confirmed the reporting to USA TODAY on Thursday morning but provided no more information.
The attack was attempted amid growing fears of foreign meddling in the upcoming presidential election. Just Wednesday, U.S. intelligence officials said Russia was behind a fake video smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with false sexual abuse allegations as part of an election interference effort favoring Donald Trump.
Cyberattack came on eve of early voting in Georgia
The attack also came on the eve of early voting beginning Oct. 15 in Georgia.
In the days since early voting began, Georgia voters have been showing up in droves to cast their ballots. As of Monday, the eighth day of early voting, more than 1.5 million Georgians had cast an early ballot, "shattering previous early voting performance," the secretary of state said in a news release.
In the last presidential election in 2020, 1,010,162 Georgians had voted by day eight of early voting, according to the office.
“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to cast a ballot. It’s really that simple,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement. “Over the past four years we’ve worked tirelessly to prepare for this election by adding early voting days and investing in infrastructure ... We’re battled tested and ready.”
Contributing: Reuters
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Georgia Secretary of State fends off cyberattack ahead of election