WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Homeland Security Department is closer to solving the mystery about why the state of Georgia believed the federal government was trying to hack its election systems.
An official involved in the investigation said Friday that a DHS employee in part of the department far removed from cybersecurity operations visited the Georgia secretary of state's website for his work. But the employee's system was configured in a way that caused Georgia's security vendor to misinterpret the visit as a scan of its systems.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss preliminary findings.
In a letter Thursday, Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp said a computer traced back to DHS tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the state office's firewall on Nov. 15.
