Category Archives: election security

Foreign operatives were active in 2020 but did not alter vote, US officials say

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Russian, Chinese and Iranian government-linked operatives were active in advance of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, but their intrusions into U.S. organizations did not compromise the integrity of the vote, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The report released Tuesday by the departments of Homeland Security and Justice points to growing interest by an array of foreign actors to influence U.S. voters, but “found no evidence that any foreign government-affiliated actor manipulated election results or otherwise compromised the integrity” of the 2020 vote. “The playbook of Russia in 2016 is out there,” Geoffrey Hale, head of CISA’s Election Security Initiative, said in an interview. “Even in a very secure election, there are incidents, and in this cycle, you saw multiple nation-states involved.” In a separate finding made public Tuesday, the U.S. intelligence community said Russia and Iran had conducted multi-faceted operations to try to influence the vote, and that China had “considered, […]

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Federal election agency adopts updated voting security standards. Not everyone is happy.

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The Election Assistance Commission on Wednesday voted to adopt the first comprehensive update to its voting system security guidelines in more than 15 years, concluding a lengthy process that ended with a mixed reception from some election security experts. The security community largely greeted the update as a security upgrade to standards that most states rely upon at least partially for their own equipment testing and certification. A significant number of academics, activists and even some in Congress, though, voiced displeasure in particular for how the so-called Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0 would handle wireless connections on voting systems. The update stands to shape the next generation of voting systems that election vendors produce for use around the country during a period of sinking trust in the electoral process. Regardless, the more than five-year drafting process and resulting EAC vote won’t immediately transform election security because states, equipment manufacturers and […]

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Congress is starting to move on more cyber bills, even if few become law

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Congress dramatically ratcheted up the number of cybersecurity bills introduced in the last two years compared to the prior session of Congress, but that didn’t equate to much more of it becoming law, according to a think tank study out today. And while cybersecurity legislation remained a relative oasis of bipartisanship, that tendency sharply dropped off when it came to election security, found the tally from Third Way — which CyberScoop is first reporting. The findings offer potential insights into how the issue is evolving, and where it might go next, even if the trends don’t lend themselves to a simple explanation. In all, lawmakers introduced 316 cybersecurity bills in the 116th Congress that ran from 2019 to 2020, a 40% increase from the 115th Congress. That continues a trend that took off in that session of Congress: The 114th Congress saw just 22 cybersecurity measures offered, the center-left think […]

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White House must act now to boost trust in elections, experts say

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There’s a brief window for the Biden administration to boost Americans’ trust in the voting process, and the White House must take steps now, according to a new report from election-integrity experts. President Joe Biden should form a Presidential Commission on Election Resilience and Trust that would spend six months studying the issue and report back before the end of 2021, says the report from the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Despite the absence of widespread voter fraud or major cyber attacks in the 2020 elections, false information ran rampant in the pre- and post-election periods,” write David Levine, an elections integrity fellow for the ASD, and William T. Adler, a senior technologist in elections and democracy for the CDT. “The Commission should study and make recommendations about efforts to counter election-related mis- and disinformation, which undermine confidence in our democracy.” The Washington Post […]

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US arrests Twitter troll accused of spreading election disinformation in 2016

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U.S. law enforcement officials say they’ve arrested an infamous far-right troll for allegedly using social media to spread disinformation in support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Douglass Mackey, a 31-year-old Florida man, is accused of using Twitter and other platforms to disenfranchise voters by encouraging them to vote via text or social media, which are invalid voting methods. Law enforcement officials arrested Mackey, who was better known as Ricky Vaughn on social media, on Wednesday, the Justice Department said in a statement. The arrest shows how investigations into electoral interference can take years, and is a reminder of the din of domestic disinformation that still challenges U.S. democracy. While the Russian effort to sow disinformation among U.S. voters in 2016 gained widespread attention, U.S.-based propagandists were also active. Mackey and other unnamed associates allegedly flooded social media for two months prior to Election Day in 2016, urging people to […]

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Rep. Maloney seeks FBI probe of Parler’s role in Capitol attack

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The House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday asked the FBI to investigate Parler’s role in the storming of the Capitol earlier this month, and its possible ties to Russia. The committee chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, also requested that FBI Director Christopher Wray order an investigation into the social media application’s financing, according to the letter she sent to the bureau. Parler has come under scrutiny in recent weeks after rioters used the app to plan and coordinate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol Building. Apple and Google have removed Parler from their app marketplaces, while Amazon has ejected the site from its web hosting service over violent content. Maloney now contends the federal government should embark on its own probe. The FBI should “conduct a robust examination of the role that the social media site Parler played in the assault, including as a potential facilitator of planning […]

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U.S. cybersecurity: Preparing for the challenges of 2021

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In 2020, cybersecurity became a business problem for every industry, as well as the U.S. government. According to a new report by the Aspen Cybersecurity Group, there are several opportunities for the new presidential administration to increase cyberse… Continue reading U.S. cybersecurity: Preparing for the challenges of 2021→

Bill Barr: No, we won’t be seizing voting machines

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Attorney General William Barr declined to endorse a desperate effort by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to overturn Trump’s electoral defeat by seizing voting machines. Barr said at a press conference Monday that he had not seen evidence of widespread fraud that could change the result of the election, and that there was “no basis now for seizing machines by the federal government.” He also rejected the idea of naming a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations. States have certified their results in the election, which saw Joe Biden win by more than 7 million in the popular vote. Election security officials have declared the election secure. Claims of widespread voting irregularities made by Trump’s lawyers have been roundly rejected in court. Giuliani nonetheless last week pushed Ken Cuccinelli, a senior Department of Homeland Security official, to confiscate voting machines, the New York Times and Wall Street […]

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Cyber Command deployed personnel to Estonia to protect elections against Russian threat

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Personnel from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Cyber Command deployed to Estonia in recent months as part of a broader effort to protect U.S. elections against foreign hacking, American and Estonian officials announced Thursday. The mission allowed personnel from U.S. Cyber Command and Estonia’s Defense Forces Cyber Command to collaborate on hunting for malicious hacking efforts on critical networks from adversaries, officials said. Estonia in particular could help the U.S. glean intelligence about Russian cyber-operations, as it has borne the brunt of Russian hacking in the past. Montenegro, a perennial target of Russian hacking, has also worked with Cyber Command on similar missions, known as “Hunt Forward” missions, to protect the 2020 presidential elections against foreign hacking. As the thinking goes, Cyber Command can run these kinds of operations to help protect a foreign ally against intrusions conducted by shared adversaries, while also obtaining information that could help protect U.S. […]

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Review: The Perfect Weapon

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John Maggio, an award-winning producer, director, and writer, known for The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee (2017), Panic (2018), The Italian Americans (2015) and others, based this documentary on the homonymous best-selling book by Dav… Continue reading Review: The Perfect Weapon→