DHS, DOJ find ‘no evidence’ foreign government affected ‘security or integrity’ of 2022 midterms

(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice found “no evidence” that any foreign government “materially affected the security or integrity” of election infrastructure in the 2022 midterms, according to a declassified report released Monday night.

“We did detect some cyber activity that did not compromise election infrastructure networks, including from pro-Russian hacktivists and suspected People’s Republic of China (PRC) actors,” the report says.

In one instance, according to the report, pro-Russian “hacktivists” claimed they carried out a denial of service attack. The “hacktivists” said this resulted in temporarily restricted access to a state election website, the report said.

Among the key findings in the report was that the People’s Republic of China’s “cyber actors scanned both election-related and non-election state government websites.” Additionally, some of the alleged actors accumulated U.S. voter information that was publicly available U.S. voter information, “probably to collect personal identifying information and other data on US voters,” the report found.

Following their investigation, which also involved the FBI, the departments found “no evidence” that “any detected activity prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit election results in a timely manner; altered any technical aspect of the voting process; or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information or any ballots cast during 2022 federal elections.”

There were, however, “multiple incidents” where Russian, Iranian and Chinese government-affiliated actors connected to campaign infrastructure during the 2022 elections “including PRC cyber actors broadly scanning state political party domains.”

“While some cyber activity resulted in accessing some components of campaign infrastructure, we do not have any indications of any information obtained through this activity released in influence operations or otherwise deployed, modified, or destroyed,” the report said.