State, federal law enforcement tracking foreign interference in 2024 election from Russia, Iran

CHICAGO (WLS) -- For Illinois State Police and federal law enforcement agencies, election security is a real-time, intricate and expensive effort to ensure an uninterrupted and unscathed voting process.

Authorities say Illinois and other Midwestern states are attractive targets for foreign disruptors to sow chaos and create instability on Election Day.

They know this, because it's happened before.

"There's the usual actors, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, which may try to ferment division with misinformation, with cyberattacks," Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said.

Kelly told the I-Team that ISP has unleashed a series of defensive tactics to prevent such attacks from happening. The Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center known as the STIC in Springfield, Illinois is the front line against overseas attacks on the 2024 election.

"You know the bottom line, Chuck, is sharing information, making sure that everybody within the law enforcement structure at the federal, state and local level, are all talking to each other, and that we can respond appropriately and make sure this is a safe process and safe week going ahead as the election occurs," said Kelly.

In 2016, voter databases in Illinois were penetrated by Russian intelligence and several hundred thousand personal voter files were breached. Since then, the state has spent millions of dollars to prevent a repeat.

Foreign actors have not let up. Cybersecurity experts at suburban Lewis University told the I-Team foreign attack attempts against U.S. targets have increased in recent months.

"They're monitoring and they see, you know, day by day, even hour by hour, you know, this many number of attempted attacks," said Professor Jason Perry, Director of Cybersecurity and IT Programs at Lewis University.

"The probability of an attacker directly hacking the vote or the vote count is the lower probability of threat, although, one that we're armed and ready for. Yeah. The misinformation, I would say, would be much more serious because that has a very low barrier to entry," he said.

At FBI headquarters in Chicago the bureau's national security cyber- and counterintelligence squad helps coordinate on the federal end. A recent alert displayed fake media sites investigators say are linked to the Kremlin.

"It is a global environment that we all live in, everything is connected, particularly in terms of cybersecurity. And while Iran may be dealing with Israel, their hackers and cyberthreat actors that they are behind still have the ability to act in that environment. Russia may be dealing with Ukraine, but that doesn't mean Russia is going to pull off the step off the gas in terms of their cyber activity and their just general motivation to try to ferment a division in the United States," said Kelly.

He said success will be measured if foreign interference is blocked, voting goes off without any disruptions and the results are counted quickly and accurately.

But with what Kelly calls a "heightened threat environment," there is also a plan for what may happen the day after the election.