As midterm elections draw closer, the Democratic National Committee has notified the FBI about a brand-new attack on its voter database. The attack appears to be a commonly-used "phishing" attack, in which an unknown party sends out fake emails directing targeted individuals to a fake website intended to look like a real, trusted one.
The page was designed to look like the access page Democratic Party officials and campaigns across the country use to log into a service called Votebuilder, which hosts the database, the source said, adding the DNC believed it was designed to trick people into handing over their login details.
The effort apparently was discovered before the attack could be launched and was, according to DNC chief security officer Bob Lord, unsuccessful.
It now falls on the FBI and security researchers to determine who was behind this latest attack; the most obvious question, of course, is whether it represents part of the continuation of the 2016 attacks on Democratic officials by Russian government-allied hackers that intelligence officials have warned are still taking place. In July, 12 Russians were indicted by federal officials for their roles in those previous DNC attacks.