Russia successfully penetrated voter registration rolls in several U.S. states before the 2016 presidential election, the nation's cybersecurity chief said Wednesday.
"We saw a targeting of 21 states — and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated," Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News.
Manfra said that she could not discuss classified information publicly — and U.S. officials told NBC that no evidence existed that Moscow had altered any voter rolls.
NBC said reached out to the 21 states apparently targeted by Russia. Five, including Texas and California, said they were never attacked.
Homeland Security had notified the states that Russia tried to infiltrate their voter systems before the election.
"I would say they have all taken it seriously," Manfra told NBC.
Last June, she told the Senate Intelligence Committee that those states had been targeted by Kremlin hackers.
It had been known that databases in Arizona and Illinois were hacked. Others saying they were breached included Alabama, Colorado, Florida and Wisconsin, according to news reports.
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