Department of Homeland Security tells 21 states about Russian hacking during 2016 election

The Department of Homeland Security contacted election officials in 21 states to notify them that they had been targeted by Russian government hackers during the 2016 election campaign.

In June 2017, DHS officials said that people connected to the Russian government tried to hack voter registration files or public election sites in 21 states, but this was the first time that government officials contacted individual state election officials to let them know their systems had been targeted. Officials said DHS told officials in all 50 states whether their systems had been attacked or not. In only a handful of states, including Illinois, did hackers actually penetrate computer systems, according to US officials, and there is no evidence that hackers tampered with any voting machines. State elections officials in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington were told they were targeted.