Category Archives: 2016 election

Election tech vendors say they’re securing their systems. Does anyone believe them?

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The last few years have been an awakening for Election Systems & Software. Before 2016, very few people were publicly pressing the company to change the way it handled its cybersecurity practices. Now, the nation’s leading manufacturer of election technology has become a lightning rod for critics. Security experts say the small number of companies that dominate the nation’s election technology market, including ES&S, have failed to acknowledge and remedy vulnerabilities that lie in systems used to hold elections across the country. Once left to obscurity, the entire ecosystem has been called into question since the Russian government was found to have interfered with the 2016 presidential campaign. While there has never been any evidence to suggest that any voting machines were compromised, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI recently issued a memo that all 50 states were at least targeted by Russian intelligence. The peak of the criticism came after the Voting Village exhibition […]

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Russian hackers are ready to disrupt US energy utilities, says DHS

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Jonathan Homer says Russian hackers have snared “hundreds of victims” in the utilities and equipment sectors and “got to the point where they could have thrown switches” in a way that could have caused power blackouts. Continue reading Russian hackers are ready to disrupt US energy utilities, says DHS→

Facebook Is Testing a Feature to Tell You If That DM Came from Russia

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Facebook has faced a wave of misinformation and scam campaigns. Users may soon have more information about that unsolicited direct message, judging by a new feature Facebook is currently trying out. Continue reading Facebook Is Testing a Feature to Tell You If That DM Came from Russia→

Senate to review fusion center plan to deter Russian cyberattacks

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Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Wednesday they would consider plans offered by a Obama administration official to fight back against Russian aggression in cyberspace. Victoria Nuland, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told lawmakers that it would be pragmatic for the country to consider a new “fusion center” to deter foreign election meddling similar to what occurred in 2016. The approach Nuland described would look like the counter-terrorism model pursued by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. “On the President’s direction and with Congressional support, the Trump Administration could immediately establish a multi-agency Fusion Center, modeled on the National Counter Terrorism Center [(NCTC)] but smaller in size, to pull together all the information and resources of our government to identify, expose and respond to state-sponsored efforts to undermine American democracy through disinformation, cyberattack, and abuse of the internet,” Nuland said. Senior […]

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Facebook aims to outsmart future high-tech election meddlers with 1861 technology

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To prevent high-tech meddling in US national elections of the future, Facebook plans to use a technology dating back to 1861 – the humble postcard. The social media giant plans to use the cards, first patented in 1861 in Philadelphia, as a form o… Continue reading Facebook aims to outsmart future high-tech election meddlers with 1861 technology→

DHS threatened with subpoena over information about Kaspersky removal

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Another influential congressman has criticized the Homeland Security Department (DHS) for not being transparent enough about the government’s ongoing efforts to remove a Russian anti-virus product from federal systems. Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, is threatening to subpoena documents from DHS concerning a ban against Kaspersky Lab’s anti-virus software. The threat comes because the department failed to provide sufficient information requested by the committee, according to Smith. Smith, R-Texas, is not the first lawmaker to call out DHS for a lack of cooperation. In a letter last month, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., accused the department of sending “unclear messages” about its progress made on banning Kaspersky products. The committee originally asked for a detailed update about the removal process from DHS on Dec. 5, 2017. After more than a month, DHS produced a limited set of documents, but the report only contained already public information. On […]

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Bipartisan bill calls for more coordination between federal, state officials on election cybersecurity

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A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation on Thursday that aims to protect U.S. elections from foreign meddling through cyberattacks, citing reports from the intelligence community that Russia explored such interference in the 2016 election. The bill, called the Secure Elections Act, would facilitate communication among the federal, state and local levels of government on cyberthreats to elections. Specifically, it would require the Department of Homeland Security to expedite security clearances for state election officials to review information on such threats. The legislation also seeks to provide guidelines for how to secure election systems and would provide grants states to implement those guidelines and upgrade their election equipment. The bill would also create a “Hack the Election” program that would allow independent researchers to assess the security of election systems. The provision doesn’t specify whether it would have to be a bug bounty program like the U.S. military’s recent efforts. James Lankford, R-Okla., […]

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Senators introduce election cybersecurity bill to improve information sharing

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Two U.S. senators are introducing a bill that aims to increase states’ preparedness for cyber interference in federal elections amid concerns about foreign meddling in the 2016 election, Reuters reported. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., announced the the Securing America’s Voting Equipment (SAVE) Act on Tuesday, which would authorize the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to issue security clearances to state officials in charge of running federal elections. The clearance would allow the DNI to share classified intelligence about election threats with those officials. The legislation would also authorize a grant program to let states upgrade their election technology. While the Department of Homeland Security designated election systems as “critical infrastructure” in January, this bill would reiterate that designation as legislation. The DHS last month notified 21 states that their election systems were scanned by Russian hackers looking for vulnerabilities. However some of those states challenged that notion and said their systems were never scanned […]

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