Report: FBI investigated cyberattacks on Orange County House candidate this year

FBI agents earlier this year investigated a series of cyberattacks executed against former Democratic House candidate Hans Keirstead during his unsuccessful bid for Orange County’s coastal 48th Congressional District, according to a report released Wednesday by Rolling Stone.
The attacks began in Aug. 2017, when Keirstead – a Laguna Beach stem-cell scientist who was vying to unseat 15-term GOP incumbent Rep. Dana Rohrabacher – opened a spear-phishing message intended to give hackers access to his work email account, according to the report. Over the next several months, the campaign reported frequent cyberattacks against its website, Twitter account, and Keirstead’s company.
Keirstead’s former campaign manager, Kyle Quinn-Quesada, met with two FBI agents in January, but he said that the FBI never told Keirstead whether it had identified the source of the attacks, according to the magazine.
The heads of the FBI and Homeland Security Department warned Congress in May of ongoing Russian efforts to interfere in the 2018 midterm congressional contests. Rohrabacher’s seat is one of four in Orange County targeted by national Democrats in their effort to take control of the House. Quinn-Quesada told Rolling Stone that he has heard from fellow political operatives that other congressional campaigns have become the targets of cyberattacks “on a regular basis” this election cycle.
Keirstead finished third in the top-two primary, losing out by only 125 votes to Democrat Harley Rouda, who will face off against Rohrabacher in November. Quinn-Quesada told the magazine that he doesn’t believe the attacks affected the election results.
Source: OC Register