The Federal Election Commission restored its electronic filing system on Wednesday night, October 28, after keeping it offline for nearly 41 hours to contain a cyberattack that temporarily hid spending by major political donors days before the US midterm elections.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the outage blocked super PACs and other groups from filing mandatory 24- and 48-hour reports, the very documents that show how much money is being poured into helping or harming candidates as the November 3 vote approaches.
What the FEC outage concealed
The blackout struck at the worst possible moment. Daily political spending accelerates to its fastest pace of the entire two-year election cycle in the final days of a campaign, finance experts said. Brendan Glavin, research director at OpenSecrets, said super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums, and dark money groups averaged more than $50 million per day in the week before the outage. On October 20 alone, more than $250 million in spending was reported.
For almost two full days, none of that money was visible to the public.
“We didn't have access to the last-minute spending, which is really ramped up as the election draws nearer,” said campaign finance watchdog Molly White, who tracks crypto and Big Tech political spending. “We have no visibility into that when the filing systems are down.”
“It's pretty devastating this close to the election,” she added.
A deliberate breach, a swift shutdown
The FEC posted a notice just after 10 p.m. ET on Monday saying it was investigating a problem causing “major” outages across the systems that process electronic campaign filings. An FEC officer told campaign compliance firms late Monday that the agency had taken the services offline after a “bad actor” attempted to breach its systems, according to an email reviewed by Reuters and reported by HuffPost. Campaign finance managers had to reset their passwords before logging back in.
The agency has not identified the motive. Hackers of all kinds regularly target government networks for espionage, financial gain, or political purposes. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency both referred questions to the FEC, which did not return requests for comment on Wednesday.
Why transparency in the final week matters
Hilary Braseth, executive director of the nonpartisan watchdog OpenSecrets, warned in a statement released before the system was restored that the stakes go beyond a technical failure.
“Disclosure delayed is disclosure denied,” Braseth said. “When hundreds of millions of dollars in outside money flood political airwaves in the final days before an election, transparency is not an optional luxury, it is a fundamental public safeguard.”
The timing of the hacking attempt, so close to the midterms, and the FEC's silence about the cause stirred conspiracy theories across the political consulting industry, several people told the Post. White acknowledged it would be a convenient way for unscrupulous actors to bury unpopular last-minute spending.
“It's hard to say with any real information that that's what happened, but it's certainly I think where people's minds go very quickly,” she said.
Did the FEC respond correctly?
Security professionals largely defended the agency's decision. Kyle Sandy, cybersecurity director at IT security firm Logically, said taking the system offline was the right call when facing an active attack.
“It tells me the FEC detected something they couldn't immediately scope and chose a known outage over an unknown risk,” Sandy said. The shutdown gave the agency time to verify that no data had been altered by the intruders before restoring service.
It is a lesson familiar to anyone who follows the daily assault on Israeli institutions. Iranian-linked groups, Hezbollah sympathizers, and Hamas apologists have targeted Israeli government networks for years, and the Jewish state responded by building one of the world's most advanced cyber defense ecosystems. When Jerusalem's institutions detect a breach, they do not hesitate: they isolate, they verify, they restore. The FEC followed exactly that playbook, and it worked.
What this means for the November 3 midterms
The FEC does not administer US elections, and the outage will have no effect on voters' ability to cast ballots. The agency said most affected services have been restored. But the episode lands amid a broader debate over foreign interference and election security, one that Israel watches closely as America's most reliable ally.
Israel knows better than most nations what it costs to defend democratic institutions against hostile actors. The Jewish people have faced enemies who preferred darkness to disclosure for millennia; the Passover Haggadah's warning about those who rise in every generation to destroy us applies as much to cyber saboteurs as to armies. An attack on the machinery of transparency in a democracy is an attack on the democracy itself, and friends of the United States should treat it that way.
The FEC has promised to continue its investigation. Whether the public ever learns who mounted the attempt, and why, remains an open question as Americans head to the polls on November 3.
Frequently asked questions
Was the US election itself affected by the FEC cyberattack?
No. The FEC does not administer elections, and the agency confirmed that the outage had no effect on voters' ability to cast ballots in the November 3 midterms.
How long was the FEC filing system offline?
The system was down for nearly 41 hours, from Monday night until Wednesday night, October 28, before being restored.
How much political spending was hidden during the outage?
OpenSecrets research director Brendan Glavin said super PACs and dark money groups spent an average of over $50 million per day in the week before the outage, with more than $250 million reported on October 20 alone.
Who attacked the FEC?
The motive and identity of the “bad actor” remain unknown. The FEC has not announced details about the cause, and the FBI and CISA referred questions back to the agency.