Georgia Election Officials Foil Cyber Attack on Voter Portal

Georgia's election officials swiftly countered an attempted disruption to the absentee voter portal earlier this month, the secretary of state's office has announced. On October 14, the day preceding the start of early in-person voting, officials detected an unusual slowdown. This cyber assault specifically targeted the section of Georgia's website for absentee ballot requests. Cloudflare, an internet security firm, identified the issue as a denial-of-service attack, with 420,000 IP addresses attempting simultaneous access.

To counter this, officials employed a verification mechanism, effectively mitigating the surge of illegitimate traffic. The site remained operational and secure, assured Gabriel Sterling, a senior official. Sterling emphasized the efficiency of their response, noting that "within 30 minutes of the first alert, everything was back to normal." Though the origin of the attack remains unknown, the quick deployment of protective measures ensured voter data stayed uncompromised. Federal authorities, including the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, were informed. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)