Volusia County elections supervisor says Russian hackers sent phishing emails

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. (FOX 35 ORLANDO) - Volusia County elections officials say before the 2016 election, Russian hackers sent staff members phishing emails.

“They sent it to four of our email addresses and they are ones posted on our website for contact information,” said Supervisor of Elections Lisa Lewis.

She says the emails didn’t quite look right. The sender was posing as a voter registration vendor. There was even a logo in the email, but it came from a gmail account and the real company quickly sent out a warning that the emails were fake.

“Our IT department here in the county traced it back to a Russian IP address,” Lewis said.

The recently released Mueller report says the Russian military sent those emails to more than 120 Florida county election officials and at least one county was actually hacked. Where exactly it happened is still under wraps.

Governor Ron DeSantis is reportedly meeting with the FBI soon to try and get more information.

The Florida Department of State is also in the dark. 

A statement from their communications office said: “Upon learning of the new information released in the Mueller report, the Department immediately reached out to the FBI to inquire which county was referenced in the report, but they declined to share that information with us.”

Lewis says no one in her office opened the attachment.

She says election officials have been on high alert ever since the hacking attempt. 

There’s also security in place to flag suspicious emails.

“To have someone try to interfere with what we take a lot of pride in, it is upsetting to supervisors,” Lewis said.