Page:Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election Volume 1.pdf/8

 (U) DHS and FBI issued a second FLASH and a Joint Analysis Report in October that flagged suspect IP addresses, many unrelated to Russia. DHS briefers told the Committee that they were intentionally over-reporting out of an abundance of caution, given their concern about the seriousness of the threat. DHS representatives told the Committee, "We were very much at that point in a sort of duty-to-warn type of attitude … where maybe a specific incident like this, which was unattributed at the time, wouldn't have necessarily risen to that level. But … we were seeing concurrent targeting of other election-related and political figures and political institutions … [which] led to what would probably be more sharing than we would normally think to do."

DHS assessed that the searches, done alphabetically, probably included all 50 states, and consisted of research on "general election-related web pages, voter ID information, election system software, and election service companies."