Washington confirms a cyberattack on its Secretary of State's website on election night

Washington (United States) Secretary of State Steve Hobbs confirmed a cyberattack on the Secretary of State's website in a live interview with KOMO News on the night of Tuesday 3 November, election day. According to the station, some pages were temporarily offline and have since been restored.

Hobbs said the vote-counting machines used by the counties are not connected to the internet and were not affected, and that "for now" they are holding up. He added that this kind of activity is common during election periods and that malicious actors, including states, may try to disrupt elections.

A spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office told KOMO News that traffic to the website had increased in the preceding days and attributed it to bots, although she did not know whether it was related to the attack. The incident is under investigation.

Story under review: there is only one source opened (KOMO News); still missing is a statement from the Secretary of State's office saying what type of attack it was, which pages went down and for how long.