How An Anti-China Website Became a Megaphone for Election Misinformation
Last October, visitors to the recently-launched GNews website would have seen headlines about China-related issues including Uyghur detention facilities, Hong Kong protests, and the destruction of Tibetan Buddhist sites. Visitors to the website today, however, are met with a stream of conspiracy theories involving presidential candidate Joe Biden and his family, lobbing far-flung allegations of incest, child trafficking, and rape…
Why Email Is Still an Election Day Disinformation Risk
As Election Day looms, federal officials, private companies, and information security experts are urging voters to be on guard for misleading information, especially from sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, where viral information can whipsaw across the country in the blink of an eye. But one disinformation vector may be hiding in plain sight: email….
A Ransomware Attack on a Georgia County Has Affected Voting Systems
Ransomware and election security have been the two great themes of the 2020 cybersecurity landscape. So it may not come as a surprise that those topics have finally intersected. With the U.S. presidential election less than two weeks away, a county in northern Georgia that has been hit by ransomware might become a litmus test for how prepared local governments are when it comes to defending voting systems….
A Conversation With the DoJ Attorney Who Is Exposing State-Sponsored Hackers
“The honest truth is if we’re going to be public about charges, we’re going to charge the case when it’s ready to be charged, when we’re able to line up what we need to operationally, allowing for things like engaging foreign partners and rally like-minded nations into joining us on commenting on the activity. We’re going to do that when we can do it, and if you don’t hear from us for a couple months it just means we’re working on something else…”
U.S. Indicts Six Russian Officers Tied to One of the World’s Most Destructive Hacking Groups
The U.S. unsealed charges today against six Russian intelligence officers who are allegedly members of the elite Russian hacking organization known as Sandworm—a group believed to be behind some of the most destructive cyberattacks in history. The charges come weeks after several indictments targeting Chinese and Iranian hackers and just 15 days before the U.S. presidential election…
Why a Failed Election Hack Could Be Worse Than a Successful One
According to former intelligence and homeland security officials, it doesn’t matter how strong the U.S.’s cyber defenses are in the lead-up to the election, because even a failed or thwarted hack could still disrupt the vote—maybe even worse than a successful one…
How Iran’s Election Interference Efforts Have Evolved
Prior to 2016, Iran’s cyberoperations were primarily focused on the Middle East and its regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Islamic State. Tehran’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election were limited and largely unsuccessful, according to a new report. But since President Trump took office, Iranian cyberoperations have focused on targeting a U.S. audience, and those efforts have increased as the 2020 election draws closer…
Your Voting Data Is Being Sold Online. But Who’s Buying It?
State and local governments make voter databases readily available to give academics, pollsters, and pretty much anyone who asks a nationwide impression of voter registration and election turnout. But on occasion—and especially before elections—this publicly available information makes its way onto sites where users typically share and sell breached databases and hacking tools…
Flurry of Indictments Signal a New U.S. Strategy for Combating Foreign Hackers
The federal government isn’t always known for its speed in the cybersecurity realm. But last week it moved at a breakneck pace to pull back the curtain on foreign cyberthreats. In a series of enforcement actions, the Department of Justice unsealed seven federal indictments charging 16 foreign nationals from China, Russia, Iran, and Malaysia with hacking-related crimes…
Officials Warn of Phone Scams Targeting Hospitals and Patients
Tucked into the University of South Florida’s Tampa campus, the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute treats a range of health issues and pioneers research in oncology and drug discovery. But the Moffitt staff — like hospital workers throughout the country — have struggled to deal with a particular IT problem in recent years: robocalls and phone scams that clog lines and put sensitive data at risk…