WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, Johnson testified before the US Congress that 18 states had sought assistance to protect their election systems from cyberattacks. The following day, Johnson noted, one more state has also requested help.
"I’ve been out there very publicly encouraging state and local election officials to seek our assistance… and were seeing pretty good responses from the states," Johnson said. "Some 19 states have requested our assistance and were in the midst of providing it right now."
Johnson reiterated that in several instances, hackers have penetrated state voting systems to obtain data on individual voters.
The United States, Johnson added, has not determined who was responsible, and he declined to comment on allegations by some lawmakers and media reports that that blamed hackers in Russia.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the incidents and has called all such allegations absurd.