FEC Restores Filing System After 2-Day Breach Attempt as $11.21 Billion Ad Cycle Nears Election Day
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Oct 28
FEC Restores Filing System After 2-Day Breach Attempt as $11.21 Billion Ad Cycle Nears Election Day
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 28
Summary
The FEC said around 5 p.m. Wednesday that its electronic filing system was back online after a disruption that began late Monday and blocked campaigns and PACs from reporting donations and spending.
An internal email said a “bad actor” was trying to breach the agency’s systems, prompting the shutdown of web services while officials investigated and began deploying a fix late Tuesday.
The outage obscured late-stage money flows less than a week before Election Day, when House and Senate candidates must report donations of $1,000 or more within 48 hours and outside groups must disclose certain $1,000 expenditures within 24 hours.
OpenSecrets said super PACs and other groups had averaged about $80 million a day in spending over the past two weeks, with one day topping $260 million, while AdImpact put booked or reserved political ads at a record $11.21 billion.
The FEC said the incident did not affect voting systems or ballot counting, but watchdogs said the blackout exposed transparency and cybersecurity weaknesses at an agency already operating with only 2 of 6 commissioner seats filled.