Secretary of State Adrian Fontes acknowledged in a press release earlier this month that possible foreign actors conducted a cyber attack on the candidate portal of the secretary of state’s (AZSOS) website. Fontes downplayed the hacking, and didn’t indicate whether the hackers were successful or not.
State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), founder and chair of the Arizona Freedom Caucus, posted his concern about Fontes’ dismissive press release on X. “July 1st press release looks like a MASSIVE cover up. FBI & DHS (at least!) now involved. A private briefing was held TODAY and legislators have confirmed that a ‘foreign cyberattack on AZ’s election system occurred.’ The public is totally in the dark. Adrian Fontes is lying!”
Turning Point COO Tyler Bowyer labeled it a “[m]assive failure” by Fontes.
Fontes said in his July 1 press release, “The Secretary of State’s Office detected and successfully responded to a malicious adversary that targeted the Arizona Secretary of State’s website. These attempts were investigated, our security controls tuned for similar attack patterns, and applicable threat intelligence was shared with our cybersecurity partners. The Arizona statewide voter registration database was not targeted and is unaffected by this event.”
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