Leak shows Russia attempted to hack US voting system days before the election

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A leaked NSA document determining that hackers connected to Russian military intelligence tried to breach US voting systems days before the 2016 election has national security experts and former intelligence officials reeling.

Russian military intelligence, according to the document, launched an attack on at least one US voting-software supplier and sent so-called spear-phishing emails to at least 100 local election officials shortly before the election.

In addition to being the strongest public indication so far that Russia interfered in the US election, the document also indicates that Russian hackers may have "penetrated further into US voting systems than was previously understood," The Intercept, which first published the document, reported.

A US intelligence official contacted by The Intercept said the document's findings were not necessarily definitive and warned against drawing too many conclusions from the analysis. The Intercept said it was unclear from the document whether the hackers had an effect on the election's outcome.

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"This is indeed a big deal," said Bob Deitz, a veteran of the NSA and CIA who worked under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "We are lucky that US presidential elections are so localized that it is difficult to do an effective hack."

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