BACKTRACK

DNC Says Voter Database ‘Hack’ Was a False Alarm, Actually Just a ‘Test’

The “unauthorized” test was performed at the behest of the Michigan Democratic Party.

The Democratic National Committee announced Thursday that the phishing attempt it had reported to the FBI yesterday was actually an unauthorized test carried out on behalf of the Michigan Democratic Party by the tech firm DigiDems. The controversy began Wednesday morning, when the DNC called the FBI over fears it was experiencing a hack on its nationwide voter database after it appeared that unknown actors set up a fake login page to collect usernames and passwords. Later that day, the DNC backtracked, noting in a statement that it believed that the phishing attempt was part of an unauthorized “test” on its VoteBuilder system—but had not yet identified the responsible party. “The test, which mimicked several attributes of actual attacks on the Democratic Party’s voter file, was not authorized by the DNC, VoteBuilder nor any of our vendors,” DNC Chief Security Officer Bob Lord said Wednesday. It is not yet clear why the Michigan Democratic Party conducted the unauthorized test.