Category Archives: 2020 elections

DHS intel official alleges he was ordered to halt Russia reporting because it made Trump ‘look bad’

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In a whistleblower complaint made public Wednesday, a senior Department of Homeland Security official accused the department’s acting secretary of directing him to refrain from distributing an intelligence report on Russian election interference because it would make President Donald Trump “look bad.” The allegation from Brian Murphy, who until August was principal deputy undersecretary in DHS’s intelligence office, will add to criticism from Democratic lawmakers that intelligence has been politicized under acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf. According to the complaint, Murphy was instructed in July first by the DHS chief of staff and then by Wolf himself to hold off on distributing an intelligence memo on Russian disinformation because it was unflattering for Trump. That followed a directive in May from Wolf to Murphy, the complaint alleges, to stop providing intelligence assessments on Russian interference threats and to begin reporting on threats from China and Iran. “Mr. Wolf stated that […]

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As Trump rails against mail-in voting, DHS warns Russia is doing the same

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The Russian government will continue to use its media mouthpieces to attack mail-in voting and sow divisions among voters just weeks before the U.S. election, the Department of Homeland Security warned state and local election officials on Thursday. “We assess that Russia is likely to continue amplifying criticism of vote-by-mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process,” reads a DHS bulletin, which CyberScoop reviewed. “Since at least March 2020, Russian malign influence actors have been amplifying allegations of election integrity issues in new voting processes and vote-by-mail programs,” the memo says. Moscow’s reported denigration of the vote-by-mail process mirrors the criticisms leveled by President Donald Trump, who for weeks has baselessly claimed that mail-in voting can lead to widespread fraud. In reality, mail-in ballot fraud is exceptionally rare. On Wednesday, Trump suggested that voters should try voting twice in North Carolina, […]

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Trump administration urged to sanction Russian individuals and groups for election meddling

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A group of Democratic senators is urging the U.S. Treasury Department to impose sanctions on those involved in efforts to interfere in the 2020 elections so far, including those from Russia. “We write to urge you immediately to impose sanctions on individuals, entities and governmental actors seeking to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections,” the 11 lawmakers, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, wrote in a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Congress mandated a broad range of sanctions tools, and it is long past time for the administration to send a direct message to President Putin: the U.S. will respond immediately and forcefully to continuing election interference by the government of the Russian Federation and its surrogates, to punish, deter and substantially increase the economic and political costs of such interference.” The U.S. intelligence community has assessed Russia is currently working to “publicly denigrate” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, according to a statement the Office […]

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Trump administration urged to sanction Russian individuals and groups for election meddling

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A group of Democratic senators is urging the U.S. Treasury Department to impose sanctions on those involved in efforts to interfere in the 2020 elections so far, including those from Russia. “We write to urge you immediately to impose sanctions on individuals, entities and governmental actors seeking to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections,” the 11 lawmakers, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, wrote in a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Congress mandated a broad range of sanctions tools, and it is long past time for the administration to send a direct message to President Putin: the U.S. will respond immediately and forcefully to continuing election interference by the government of the Russian Federation and its surrogates, to punish, deter and substantially increase the economic and political costs of such interference.” The U.S. intelligence community has assessed Russia is currently working to “publicly denigrate” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, according to a statement the Office […]

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No, Michigan voter data wasn’t hacked by the Russians

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Michigan’s secretary of state on Tuesday refuted a news report asserting that the state’s voter registration database had been compromised in an example of how election officials are combatting misinformation weeks before the presidential election. The statement came in response to a report in Russian media outlet Kommersant claiming that recently purloined data on American voters was available on a hacking forum. It turns out that data was already publicly available, and it appears to have been repackaged by whoever was advertising it. “Our system has not been hacked,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office said in a statement. “We encourage all Michigan voters to be wary of attempts to ‘hack’ their minds, however, by questioning the sources of information and advertisements they encounter and seeking out trusted sources, including their local election clerk and our office.” “Public voter information in Michigan and elsewhere is accessible to anyone through a […]

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Everything you need to know about voting by mail

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State and local governments, those running for office and the American electorate are facing an unprecedented election process this year in which mail-in ballots will play a large part in how voters pick their elected officials during a once-in-a-century pandemic. In doing so, they have to navigate a U.S. Postal Service that has warned of tardy ballot deliveries, cut through the din of misinformation coming from President Donald Trump, and overcome a process that can be confusing on a number of different levels. While mail-in voting and cybersecurity don’t seem to go hand-in-hand, security officials are heavily involved in making sure the entire operation can be trusted once it’s complete. Here’s what you need to know about mail-in balloting and how it will play a greater role in this presidential election: How long has voting by mail been going on, and how is it used today? Mail-in voting is not […]

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Cyber Command deploys abroad to fend off foreign hacking ahead of the 2020 election

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The Department of Defense has sent personnel abroad to hunt for malicious software that adversaries may be using against U.S. voting infrastructure or networks prior to Election Day. Gen. Paul Nakasone announced Tuesday in a Foreign Affairs editorial that Cyber Command personnel would be deployed as part of a plan to allow defensive cyber-operators from the Pentagon to identify malware targeting other countries’ networks and systems. Similar attacks could later be used for attempted intrusions aimed at disrupting American technologies. The announcement coincides with ongoing efforts between Cyber Command, the military’s offensive hacking outfit, and the National Security Agency to monitor threats to the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. It was not immediately clear where the military personnel were deployed. Cyber Command has run multiple so-called Hunt Forward missions in Montenegro, which, Russian military hackers have aimed to disrupt their political process, as they did with a hack-and-leak operation against the Democratic National Committee […]

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Feds warn election officials of potentially malicious ‘typosquatting’ websites

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The Department of Homeland Security last week told election officials to be wary of suspicious websites that impersonate federal and state election domains and could be used for phishing or influence operations. The Aug. 11 bulletin distributed by DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which CyberScoop reviewed, listed roughly 50 suspicious domains that were purporting to offer information related to voting and elections. “These suspicious typo-squatting domains may be used for advertising, credential harvesting and other malicious purposes, such as phishing and influence operations,” the advisory says. “Users should pay close attention to the spelling of web addresses or websites that look trustworthy but may be close imitations of legitimate U.S. election websites.” Typosquatting is an issue that litters the internet and affects every sector because it is cheap and easy for anyone to set up a website that mimics the spelling of a legitimate one. A 2018 study found […]

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List of 2020 election meddlers includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, US intelligence official says

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Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea are working to influence U.S. elections by running information operations, according to the top counterintelligence official in the Trump administration. All three seek to sow discord as Election Day looms, according to Bill Evanina, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He did not specify the nature and duration of the operations. “I believe we’re going to have a lot of things that occur in the next 70 days that are going to impact and influence those issues, from nation-state threat actors, whether it be Iran, China, and obviously Russia. We have other countries getting in the nexus because they think it works,” Evanina said during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce virtual event Wednesday. “They want to be able to provide their optics for discord in the United States … countries like Cuba, and […]

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How a new federal policy for telling election officials about cyber-intrusions got put to use

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In early 2020, federal officials changed how they communicated with states about cyber-intrusions affecting election infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency and the FBI would now inform senior state officials, and not just IT personnel, of election-related hacking incidents in a given state. Some state officials, who had criticized the federal government for being too slow and not specific enough in sharing data on Russian hacking in 2016, welcomed the new policy as another guardrail against foreign interference in 2020. And in March, at the height of the primary season, the policy was put into action. An unidentified hacker spoofed the email account of a voting-equipment vendor and sent a phishing email to a local election official in Missouri, according to multiple people familiar with the incident who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official took the bait — a document purporting to be an “election funding report” but which really redirected the official to […]

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