FBI Warns U.S. Political Parties They Could Be Targets of Chinese Hackers Ahead of Midterms

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According to Republican and Democratic party officials and government sources, Chinese government hackers are scanning U.S. political party domains ahead of next month’s midterm elections, looking for vulnerable systems as a potential precursor to hacking operations, and the FBI is making a big push to alert potential victims to batten down the hatches.

FBI agents in field offices across the country have notified some Republican and Democratic state party headquarters they might be targets of the Chinese hackers. However, none of the potential targets were hacked or breached.

An NSA official said the Chinese hackers, suspected to be the group formerly known as APT 1, scanned more than 100 U.S. state-level political party domains altogether. In a memo, the political party domains were scanned “likely so the PRC cyber actor could build a target network for possible future operations,” the NSA said. (Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima, Tim Starks, and Aaron Sch…