A cyberattack targeting the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) has disrupted its electronic filing system just days before the November 3 midterm elections, raising concerns over transparency in political campaign financing.
The incident forced the agency to temporarily shut down its online filing services after detecting an attempted breach, according to Reuters. The disruption has prevented political committees from submitting certain urgent spending disclosures during a critical period of election campaigning.
The outage comes as spending on the 2026 US midterm elections reaches record levels, with billions of dollars going into political advertising. The affected reports help the public, journalists and watchdog organisations track political spending and identify the groups financing election campaigns.
Although the disruption has limited the submission of new disclosures, previously filed campaign finance reports remain accessible through the FEC website.
Importantly, the agency does not administer elections, meaning the incident is not expected to affect voting or ballot counting. Officials have been working to restore the affected services, while the full circumstances surrounding the attempted breach remain unclear.
The incident highlights the importance of cybersecurity in protecting public access to political finance information, particularly during elections when transparency is essential to public accountability.
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