Russian Agent Visited Election Websites For 2 Metro Atlanta Counties In 2016
In Cobb County, approximately 211,000 people have voted so far.
David Goldman / Associated Press file
A Russian agent accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential race visited the election websites of two metro Atlanta counties.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office says in 2016 Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, an officer in the Russian spy agency, accessed public election information on websites for Cobb and Fulton counties.
Federal officials say Kovalev looked at a page with job postings on Cobb County’s website and visited a listing of qualified candidates on Fulton County’s website.
State elections officials say there is no evidence the websites were compromised.
“The federal government does not have information as to what actions the operative took in order to identify vulnerabilities,” said Candice Broce, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.
“But we all assume that the operative was conducting research for potential operations, such as spear phishing campaigns against elections officials using publicly accessible email addresses,” she continued.
Broce says her office has issued an advisory to elections officials in all 159 Georgia counties.
An indictment from the U.S. Justice Department in July said Russian intelligence officers visited the websites of counties in Georgia, Iowa and Florida in October 2016 to identify vulnerabilities.
At the time, Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office said the state had not been targeted, according to information it received from federal officials.
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp won the Republican nomination for governor this week.
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