Collaborate Disseminate
Steve Kramer tells CyberScoop he hasn’t seen the lawsuit filed against him over the New Hampshire primary robocall, but it won’t be successful.
The post Democratic operative behind Biden AI robocall says lawsuit won’t ‘get anywhere’ appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Democratic operative behind Biden AI robocall says lawsuit won’t ‘get anywhere’
Steve Kramer tells CyberScoop he hasn’t seen the lawsuit filed against him over the New Hampshire primary robocall, but it won’t be successful.
The post Democratic operative behind Biden AI robocall says lawsuit won’t ‘get anywhere’ appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Democratic operative behind Biden AI robocall says lawsuit won’t ‘get anywhere’
With many in the public sphere warning about a potential compromise of the integrity of the Presidential Election, security researchers instead flag online resources and influence campaigns as the biggest problem areas. Continue reading Shoring Up the 2020 Election: Secure Vote Tallies Aren’t the Problem
The Republican National Committee is relying on authentication tools and careful social media behavior in order to avoid a devastating data breach like the kind that derailed its Democratic counterparts in 2016. The RNC, which develops and promotes the party’s platform and currently supports President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, is banking on Duo Security, which specializes in multi-factor authentication, to keep state-sponsored hackers out of party accounts, according to recent Federal Election Commission filings. Even if a user’s password credentials are stolen, an extra layer of authentication can ensure that only the legitimate account holder could access his or her communications. Since March of this year, the RNC has paid just over $1,000 per month to Duo, according to FEC filings. The RNC started using Duo in 2016, just days before the election. And it’s not just email account access the RNC is trying to protect — the RNC uses multiple layers of authentication to protect other […]
The post RNC, DNC bank on Duo authentication ahead 2020 election appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading RNC, DNC bank on Duo authentication ahead 2020 election
Although the 2020 presidential race has become more crowded in recent weeks, Mick Baccio — the chief information security officer for Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s campaign — isn’t concerned. Baccio may be the only person on the South Bend, Indiana, mayor’s staff that isn’t worried about former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden or any of the other candidates. For him, the competition is foreign adversaries trying to hack into Buttigieg’s campaign infrastructure. “I don’t do politics. I’m just learning how the caucus works,” Baccio said during remarks at CYBERWARCON, a cybersecurity conference held Thursday in Arlington, Virginia. “I don’t care if it’s left or right, I care if it’s Russian or Iranian [intrusions]. That’s who I really [care about,] that’s the competitor.” His ultimate goal is making sure Buttigieg’s campaign doesn’t fall victim to the same intrusions that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign […]
The post Here’s what Pete Buttigieg’s campaign CISO is worried about appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Here’s what Pete Buttigieg’s campaign CISO is worried about
The Federal Election Commission has decided that Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy Project’s non-profit, “Defending Digital Campaigns,” may provide free and low-cost cybersecurity services to political campaigns without violating campaign finance laws, given the fact that there is a “highly unusual and serious threat” posed to U.S. elections by foreign adversaries. The driving force behind the FEC’s advisory opinion, which FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub issued Tuesday, is the fact that there is a “demonstrated, currently enhanced threat of foreign cyberattacks against party and candidate committees,” she writes in the advisory. In the ruling. Weintraub notes the FEC’s decision in partly due to the other efforts by the government, primarily to expose and prosecuting foreign adversaries, has not done enough to protect campaigns and political parties. “[F]oreign cyberattacks, in which the attackers may not have any spending or physical presence in the United States, may present unique challenges to both criminal prosecution and […]
The post FEC allows Harvard nonprofit to provide free cybersecurity services to campaigns appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading FEC allows Harvard nonprofit to provide free cybersecurity services to campaigns
With new attacks on the Israeli military and social-work educators, exploitation of the 19-year-old flaw shows no signs of slowing down. Continue reading Cybercriminals Have a Heyday with WinRAR Bug in Fresh Campaigns
A new report from the Campaign for Accountability details the questionable role of internet platforms in election races. Continue reading How Facebook and Google Win By Embedding in Political Campaigns
Nearly 30 percent of House of Representatives candidates have significant security issues in their websites compared to less than 5 percent of Senate candidates, according to new research. The disparity underscores the challenge that smaller, resource-strapped campaigns have in making themselves less vulnerable to hacking. About 3 in 10 House candidate websites scanned by election-security expert Joshua Franklin and his research team were not using important security protocols for routing data or had a major certificate issue. The scans, most of which took place in June, covered the websites of more than 500 House candidates and nearly 100 Senate candidates. “The House has significantly more candidates running and that provides more opportunities for security errors,” Franklin told CyberScoop. He presented his findings at the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas. The major political parties’ Senate candidates also tend to be more experienced on the campaign trail and have bigger staffs for those statewide races. […]
The post Research shows gap in House, Senate candidates’ website security appeared first on Cyberscoop.
Continue reading Research shows gap in House, Senate candidates’ website security
Staffers at the Democratic National Committee are getting better at spotting phishing emails, a skill that became a top priority after Russian-linked hackers breached the DNC during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, according to Chief Technology Officer Raffi Krikorian. Krikorian and his team have been challenging their colleagues to spot fake malicious emails. Since September of last year — primarily through a phishing simulation platform named Wombat — the DNC’s tech team has been targeting co-workers as part of a broad effort to evaluate internal cybersecurity risks. Staffers are graded on their ability to spot, report and avoid emails that in a real-world scenario might carry malware. The ongoing exercise is helping Krikorian and DNC Chief Information Security Officer Bob Lord learn how often any person in the organization is likely to click a suspicious email attachment. “People have such PTSD about what happened in 2016 that there’s a real desire to improve [security] here,” Krikorian […]
The post DNC pushes employees, campaigns to embrace email security habits ahead of midterms appeared first on Cyberscoop.
Continue reading DNC pushes employees, campaigns to embrace email security habits ahead of midterms