Category Archives: election security

Feds charge California man for 2018 DDoS attacks on congressional campaign

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Federal law enforcement officials have charged a California man for conducting cyberattacks on the website of California congressional candidate in 2018. Arthur Dam is accused of intentionally damaging a protected computer by carrying out distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) that temporarily disrupted the Democratic primary in California’s 25th district. He was arrested Friday, according to local news reports. The complaint says Dam’s wife, identified only as “K.O.” worked for one of the victim’s opponents in the primary race. The Intercept identified Dam’s wife as Kelsey O’Hara, a fundraiser for candidate Katie Hill. Hill went on to win the congressional race in November 2018, but resigned the following year. The FBI connected Dam to the cyberattacks through “subscriber information, IP addresses, geolocation history, and open sources,” according to an affidavit. Investigators traced the attacks to an Amazon Web Services account that Dam allegedly used at home and at work. Neither Dam nor his […]

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Russia is planning to interfere in 2020 presidential election: report

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Russia is working to interfere in the 2020 presidential election in an effort to get President Donald Trump re-elected, according to a briefing delivered to the House Intelligence Committee last week. According to a report in the The New York Times, the briefing detailed evidence that Moscow is trying to duplicate its efforts during the 2016 presidential elections, where Russia developed a “clear preference” for Trump and sought to “denigrate” the candidacy of the potential Democratic nominee. The briefing, delivered by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s election security lead Shelby Pierson, reportedly upset Trump because he suspected Democratic committee members would use the information against him, according to the Times and The Washington Post. Trump mistakenly thought that the information was supplied exclusively to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., despite the fact that multiple committee members from both parties were briefed. Trump was so infuriated by the briefing […]

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Reality Winner seeks clemency for leaking NSA report on Russian hacking attempts

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Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner is asking President Donald Trump to grant her clemency after she was sent to prison for leaking government secrets about Russian hacking. Winner was sentenced in 2018 after she allegedly mailed classified information from the NSA to The Intercept that explained how Russian hackers sent spearphishing emails to a voting software supplier and local election officials prior to the 2016 elections. Winner pleaded guilty at the time, and was sentenced to more than five years, the longest-ever term imposed by a federal court in a case of leaked government information to the media. Winner and her lawyer, who has submitted a formal petition for commutation at the Department of Justice, are asking Trump to “do the right thing” and “forgive our truth tellers” in the midst of foreign attacks against the U.S. political processes. “Our country was attacked by a hostile foreign power,” Winner’s attorney, Alison Grinter, […]

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Why aren’t presidential candidates talking about cybercrime?

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At the start of the last Democratic primary debate, the candidates were asked what makes them best prepared to be commander-in-chief. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg highlighted tackling cyber threats. And that is where the extent of the subject ended. As of the last debate, all eight events have been held without any substantive discussion about a national security threat that arguably impacts more Americans than any other. If candidates want to connect with more voters about the issues that are actually affecting their daily lives, they should talk about their plans for grappling with cyber threats—particularly cybercrime. Cybercrime is hitting millions of Americans—no matter their location or political affiliation. A shocking one-in-four Americans now say that they or someone in their household has been a victim of cybercrime. The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimates 170 local and state governments have been hit […]

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U.S. must increase defenses against Iranian information operations, report says

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As social media platforms battle Iranian bots and trolls, the U.S. government needs to step up its own fight against Tehran’s digital influence operations, a new study says. With the 2020 election approaching, Washington should do more to attribute Iranian and other foreign influence operations and warn the public about them, scholars at the Atlantic Council think tank argue. “Iran has invested significant resources and accumulated vast experience in the conduct of digital influence efforts,” the report says. It calls on the Department of Homeland Security to create an intergovernmental agency to alert U.S. officials and the public of foreign influence operations. U.S. intelligence agencies need to work closely with social media companies to pinpoint foreign influence operations, the Atlantic Council scholars Emerson Brooking and Suzanne Kianpour’s advise. That collaboration is a work in progress. While the Russian government’s use of digital influence operations received the most attention from Western […]

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GAO: CISA’s ‘nationwide strategy’ on election security should be enacted as soon as possible

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The cybersecurity wing of the Department of Homeland Security must “urgently finalize” its plans to protect the 2020 presidential election, a government watchdog agency said in a new report released Thursday. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) provides state and local election officials with federal assistance, education and information sharing about how to safeguard U.S. voting infrastructure from possible interference. Despite three years of work meant to improve security, CISA still is “not well-positioned to execute a nationwide strategy for securing election infrastructure prior to the start of the 2020 election cycle,” according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published Thursday. Most notably, CISA has not created clear plans to respond to a possible Election Day security incident in which state and local response capabilities were exhausted, according to the GAO report. The audit also determined that CISA had failed to address challenges it experienced in 2018, including an […]

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Lack of .GOV validation and HTTPS leaves states susceptible to voter disinformation campaigns

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There’s a severe lack of U.S. government .GOV validation and HTTPS encryption among county election websites in 13 states projected to be critical in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, a McAfee survey reveals. Example of what a fraudulent email… Continue reading Lack of .GOV validation and HTTPS leaves states susceptible to voter disinformation campaigns→

DEF CON 27, Voting Village – Brian Varner’s ‘Beyond the Voting Machine: Other High Value Targets’

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Thanks to Def Con 27 Volunteers, Videographers and Presenters for publishing their superlative conference videos via their YouTube Channel for all to see, enjoy and learn.
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DEF CON 27, Voting Village – Dr. Linton Salmon’s The DARPA SSITH Program

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Thanks to Def Con 27 Volunteers, Videographers and Presenters for publishing their superlative conference videos via their YouTube Channel for all to see, enjoy and learn.
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As Iowa caucuses loom, states drill with feds to protect 2020 elections

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With the Iowa caucuses just days away, state election officials from around the country gathered this week in Washington, D.C., to drill for cyberattacks, study ransomware and learn how to work with ethical hackers. The level of collaboration was unthinkable four years ago, when Russia-backed hackers and trolls interfered to the electoral process. Then, it took many months for federal officials to notify states that their systems had been targeted, and states bristled at the Department of Homeland Security’s 2017 designation of election systems as critical infrastructure. Now, federal and state officials are mapping out how a foreign adversary might try to undermine the democratic process, and practicing how they would thwart those attacks. “We’re light years ahead today from where we were [in the aftermath of 2016]” Mac Warner, the secretary of state of West Virginia, said Thursday at the National Association of Secretaries of State conference. Warner said […]

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