FBI investigating possible voter database hacks in two states

The FBI is investigating possible voter registration data breaches caused by foreign hackers in Arizona and Illinois, according to a report by Yahoo! News.

According to an alert obtained by Yahoo!, the agency has warned election officials around the country to be on the alert for such intrusions. While the alert didn't name the states specifically, a source identified the states to Yahoo!.

Both Arizona and Illinois reported hacks earlier this summer, though similar instances have also occurred in other states, including California. And, in December 2015, more than 191 million voter records were published online, though it wasn't confirmed at the time if it was the result of a hack or a mistaken release of information.

In the alert, the FBI lists an IP address, "detected in the July 2016 compromise of a state's Board of Election Web site" and also identified "August 2016 attempted intrusion activities into another state's Board of Election system."

The alert then recommends: "The FBI is requesting that states contact their Board of Elections and determine if any similar activity to their logs, both inbound and outbound, has been detected."

Yahoo! published a copy of alert, dated August 18, 2016; it's embedded below.

The alert was issued just days after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered assistance to states in the fight to protect against potential hacks and other attempts to electronically sabotage the election.

Such attacks wouldn't alter the outcome so much as they could cause myriad problems for voters, such as deleting names from voter rolls or causing havoc with voter registration. Though there's no known connection with the hacks, Arizona saw such confusion over wrong ballots and voter registration issues during its March Democratic primary.

The warnings follow several high-profile hacks of government agencies in the past year as well as recent data breaches of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

While the DNC hack was attributed to Russian hackers, the FBI alert doesn't name a suspected country or entity in these specific state attacks. Still, at least one security expert who spoke to Yahoo! about the breach, pointing to similarities in previous attacks, suggested the Russians could once again be involved.