Collaborate Disseminate
Attacks on elections have become more multifaceted over the past decade, but fears of a hacked election — real or perceived — remain one of the biggest threats.
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Fake audio of President Biden urged Democratic primary voters to stay away from the polls — a preview of election meddling to come in 2024.
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The company says it became aware of the hack on Aug. 4 but it declined to say how many customers were affected by the incident.
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A global spike in the spread of Emotet malware now includes phishing messages geared toward potential Democratic Party volunteers at hundreds of U.S. organizations, according to security researchers. Attackers behind the Emotet hacking tool have referred to current events in their email lures before, but “historically they have not directly leveraged political themes in their messaging,” reports email security company Proofpoint. The body of this particular email is taken directly from a page on the Democratic National Committee’s website, the researchers say, and attached is a malicious Word document titled “Team Blue Take Action.” The thousands of emails sent to U.S. targets came in the same week that interest spiked in the U.S. presidential campaign as President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden met in their first debate. (Trump’s announcement early Friday of a positive coronavirus test probably will not dampen Democrats’ interest in the race.) Proofpoint stresses that despite the political content of […]
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Just weeks away from the U.S. presidential election, Twitter says it is taking extra steps to secure high-profile accounts, such as political campaigns and major news outlets, whose compromise could impact voter perceptions. Twitter began rolling out the new security features, such as strong password requirements, on Thursday to the election-related accounts, including secretaries of state overseeing the vote and federal agencies and lawmakers. Accounts will be “strongly encouraged” to use two-factor authentication to prevent hacking, the social media platform said. In the weeks ahead, Twitter said it would implement “more sophisticated detections and alerts” to keep hackers from breaking into accounts. The eleventh-hour move to heighten account security reflects what Twitter executives described as the “unique sensitivities of the election period.” Four years ago, Russian bots and trolls spread disinformation on Twitter in a bid to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and boost Donald Trump. This year, U.S. intelligence agencies […]
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Just wait until the president hears about this one. Twitter announced on Thursday that it will label or remove false or misleading information that could cause confusion about an election, or is meant to undermine confidence in civic processes. The update includes enforcement against unverified claims of election rigging, ballot tampering, claiming a political victory before election results are certified and inciting unlawful conduct to prevent a peaceful transfer of power or orderly succession. The announcement does not mention President Donald Trump by name. It does, however, signal that the company will be more aggressive in checking the president’s claims as Election Day approaches. For months, Trump has used his Twitter feed to amplify unfounded claims that mail-in voting enables widespread fraud, and this month urged his supporters to vote twice. “The goal is to further protect against content that could suppress the vote and help stop the spread of harmful misinformation […]
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APT group poses as a former Wall Street Journal journalist to launch phishing campaigns and steal victim email account details. Continue reading Charming Kitten Uses Fake Interview Requests to Target Public Figures
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 […]
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Russian military hackers who stole emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016 were only acting as one part of a larger, coordinated effort to spread Kremlin-approved messaging before and after the 2016 election, according to new findings from Stanford University. Stanford’s Internet Observatory on Tuesday released a trove of analysis detailing how the GRU, a Russian military intelligence unit, was unable to generate public interest in the data stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign for more than a month. Hackers first linked to the stolen emails in a June 14, 2016 set of Facebook posts, pointing to a set of messages supposedly leaked from the campaign. Facebook engagement to the DC Leaks Page, later attributed to Russia, totaled a mere 834 engagements over 22 posts published over four months. International attention only began when WikiLeaks tweeted a link to a database containing thousands of documents revealing internal strife in the […]
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The Federal Election Commission approved a request Thursday from an anti-spearphishing company, deeming it permissible for the security vendor to provide its services to campaigns and political parties at a discount without violating campaign laws. The FEC expressed trepidation last month over whether it could approve the request from a company, Area 1 Security, to provide low or no cost services to campaigns. A debate stemmed from FEC concerns that a security firm, by offering a markdown on normally expensive services to campaigns, could inappropriately curry favor with lawmakers. This decision is one in a series of approvals the FEC has issued in recent months as it recognizes the serious threat foreign adversaries pose to U.S. elections. “Area 1 has cleared the way for candidates to arm themselves with the best technology available to protect against a repeat of the disastrous cyber-intrusions in prior election cycles,” Dan Petalas, outside counsel for Area 1, told CyberScoop. Area 1 now has […]
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