NC election officials investigating Russian cyber espionage

North Carolina election officials said Tuesday that they are actively investigating Russian attempts to compromise election software used in 21 counties.

The revelations about the software provider, VR Systems, emerged after The Intercept first reported Monday on a leaked National Security Agency document.

The document said Russian military intelligence compromised at least one VR employee's information and attempted to pose as a company representative to target local election officials.

VR Systems, which has regional offices in Matthews, said it doesn't believe any of those local election officials fell for the attempt.

"We are only aware of a handful of customers who actually received the fraudulent email," the company said in a statement.

Mecklenburg County election officials said the program is used for provisional voting and is not involved in vote tabulation.

"This never sees those vote totals," said Michael Dickerson, with the Board of Elections. "It's never something that ever touches anything like that."

Dickerson said it's unclear what hackers could get by targeting that software.

"Is that what they were doing to see if they could do it for some future attempt? Maybe. I don't really know. I don't think I really have that cynical of a mind to go into it that deeply," Dickerson said.

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