FBI plans to notify states about local election breaches, a change of policy

The FBI, in a change of policy, is committing to inform state officials if local election systems have been breached, federal officials said Thursday. In the past, the FBI would alert local governments about attacks on their electoral systems without automatically sharing that information with the state. That meant state officials, left in the dark, might be in a position of certifying the accuracy of election results without realizing there had been problems in individual counties. Alerting local governments about breaches, but not the states, was in keeping with FBI policy of protecting the privacy and identities of the actual hacking victim.