• Ransomware Can Interfere with Elections and Fuel Disinformation – Basic Cybersecurity Precautions Are Key to Minimizing the Damage

    Government computer systems in Hall County, Georgia, including a voter signature database, were hit by a ransomware attack earlier this fall in the first known ransomware attack on election infrastructure during the 2020 presidential election. Thankfully, county officials reported that the voting process for its citizens was not disrupted. Attacks like these underscore the challenges that cybersecurity experts face daily – and which loom over the upcoming election. As a cybersecurity professional and researcher, I can attest that there is no silver bullet for defeating cyber threats like ransomware. Rather, defending against them comes down to the actions of thousands of IT staff and millions of computer users in organizations large and small across the country by embracing and applying the basic good computing practices and IT procedures that have been promoted for years.

  • Election Cyber Program Targets Foreign Threats

    Following two alerts from the Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) regarding Iranian and Russian threats to election systems, the University of Chicago’s Election Cyber Surge (ECS) program mobilized its cyber volunteers to help.

  • Will Russia influence the American vote?

    U.S. voters should prepare for strange and unexpected forms of information warfare that manipulate, distort or destroy election-related information between now and Election Day – and perhaps beyond that, depending on whether there are questions about who may have won the presidency. Since 2016, Americans have learned that foreign interests attempt to affect the outcomes of presidential elections, including with social media postings and television ads. As a scholar of Russian cyber operations, I know other nations, and Russia in particular, will go to extreme measures to influence people and destabilize democracy in the U.S. and elsewhere.

  • Detecting “Deepfake” Videos by Checking for the Pulse

    With video editing software becoming increasingly sophisticated, it’s sometimes difficult to believe our own eyes. Did that actor really appear in that movie? Did that politician really say that offensive thing? Some so-called “deepfakes” are harmless fun, but others are made with a more sinister purpose. But how do we know when a video has been manipulated?

  • U.S. Puts Sanctions on Russian Research Institution Tied to Malware That Targets Industrial Systems

    The United States has placed sanctions on a Russian government research institute connected to the development of computer malware capable of targeting industrial safety systems and causing catastrophic damage.

  • U.S. Says Russian Hackers Targeted State, Local Governments Ahead of Election

    Russian state-sponsored hackers have targeted dozens of U.S. state and local government networks in recent weeks and stolen data from at least two servers, the U.S. government says. In an advisory released on October 22, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) described a range of activity from Russian-backed hackers since at least September.

  • Intelligence Agencies Accuse Iran, Russia of Trying to Use Voter Registration Data to Sow Chaos Ahead of US Election

    U.S. intelligence agencies are accusing Iran and Russia of trying to use voter registration data in “desperate attempts” to sow chaos and confusion ahead of the November 3 U.S. presidential election. In a hastily called news conference late Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that “We have confirmed that some voter registration information has been obtained by Iran, and separately, by Russia,” he said, adding both countries “have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections.” 

  • Russian Propaganda Hits Its Mark

    Given the size and scope of the Russian propaganda campaign that targeted the U.S. electorate in 2016, it is critical to understand both the impact of that campaign and the mechanisms that can reduce the impact of future campaigns, says a new RAND report.

  • Adversaries May Launch Efforts to Undermine Americans’ “Confidence in the Integrity of the Electoral Process”: CISA

    “We remain confident that no foreign cyber actor can change your vote, and we still believe that it would be incredibly difficult for them to change the outcome of an election at the national level. But that doesn’t mean various actors won’t try to introduce chaos in our elections and make sensational claims that overstate their capabilities. In fact, the days and weeks just before and after Election Day is the perfect time for our adversaries to launch efforts intended to undermine your confidence in the integrity of the electoral process”: Christopher Krebs, director of CISA.

  • Kathleen Hall Jamieson on the 2020 Election

    Professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson discusses what we learned from the election four years ago plus how journalists can responsibly share hacked content and what role the public at large can play. She says that in some ways, the country is better prepared today than during the 2016 election cycle, which was fraught with cybertrolls, hacked emails, and leaked content. In other ways, the United States hasn’t learned much from that experience.

  • Details of Russia’s Cyberattacks against Olympic, Paralympic Games Revealed

    The U.K. On Monday (19 October) exposed malicious cyberactivity from Russia’s GRU military intelligence service against organizations involved in the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games before they were postponed. The U.K. National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) said that the incident was intended to sabotage the running of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, as the malware was designed to wipe data from and disable computers and networks.

  • Facebook Users Spread Russian Propaganda Less Often When They Know Its Source

    Russian propaganda is hitting its mark on social media—generating strong partisan reactions that may help intensify political divisions—but Facebook users are less apt to press the “like” button on content when they learn that it is part of a foreign propaganda campaign, according to a new report.

  • Global Internet Freedom Declines in Shadow of Pandemic

    Governments around the world have used the COVID-19 pandemic as cover to expand online surveillance and data collection, censor critical speech, and build new technological systems of social control, according to an annual assessment of internet freedom, released Wednesday by Freedom House.

  • The Honest Spy

    Rolf Mowatt-Larssen’s A State of Mind: Faith and the CIA offers an engaging, if eccentric, memoir from a man who battled some of America’s greatest post-World War II enemies, from the Soviet Union to al-Qaida, and who also knew and worked with many of the important figures of our time.

  • The Clean Network Program: Digital Age Echoes of the “Long Telegram”?

    In August, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched the Clean Network program—“the Trump administration’s comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party.” The Clean Network program’s scope—stretching from submarine cables traversing the oceans to citizens downloading smartphone apps—reveals the breadth of the administration’s concerns about the political, ideological, and technological inroads China has made in cyberspace. These concerns recall the warning George Kennan gave in his famous “long telegram” in 1946 about the Soviet Union’s “elaborate and far flung apparatus for exertion of its influence in other countries.”