Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 15, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. In our latest entry into our election security series, we’re turning our attention to the professionals who are responsible for securing our elections. After months of research, we’ve compiled a series of recommendations for local,...

What to expect when you're electing: How election officials can counter disinformation

By Matthew Olney and the communications and public relations professionals at Cisco. Editor's Note: For more on this topic, sign up for a Cisco Duo webinar on election security on Oct. 15 at 1 p.m. ET here. In our work with our partners in the election security space, the most difficult question...

Election Systems Under Attack via Microsoft Zerologon Exploits

U.S. government officials have warned that advanced persistent threat actors APTs are now leveraging Microsoft’s severe privilege-escalation flaw, dubbed “Zerologon,” to target elections support systems. Days after Microsoft sounded the alarm that an Iranian nation-state actor was actively...

What to expect when you’re electing: Voter recommendations

By Amy Henderson. Information operations have been around for millennia, yet with the advent of the internet and the democratization of content creation, the barriers to entry have lowered to a point that anyone can play now. In the course of our latest research on disinformation, with an eye...

What to expect when you're electing: Information hygiene and the human levers of disinformation

Editor's note: Related reading on Talos election security research: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2020/07/what-to-expect-when-youre-electing.html https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2020/09/election-roundtable-video.html...

A Dangerous Year in America Enters Its Most Dangerous Month

Seven distinct factors between now and the election threaten to combine, compound, and reinforce each other in unpredictable ways...

Voter Registration ‘Error’ Phish Hits During U.S. Election Frenzy

Cybercriminals this week are tapping into this week’s political frenzy with a new phishing lure that warns U.S. targets that their voter registration data needs extra details. The emails purport to come from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency of the United States...

The Strangest Election Scenario Runs Through Georgia

There’s a small but real possibility that we won’t know which party controls the Senate until 2021, thanks to a special election and a unique state requirement...

Emotet Emails Strike Thousands of DNC Volunteers

On Thursday, hundreds of U.S. organizations were targeted by an Emotet spear-phishing campaign, which sent thousands of emails purporting to be from the Democratic National Committee and recruiting potential Democratic volunteers. Emotet has historically utilized a variety of lure themes leveragi...

Twitter removes Iranian accounts disrupting US presidential debate

By Deeba Ahmed The account holders were chattering about disrupting the first US Presidential Debate on Tuesday. Its only been a month when Microsoft warned about possible attempts of state-sponsored cybercriminals, particularly Iranian hackers, to disrupt the upcoming US presidential elections...

Lock and Code S1Ep16: Investigating digital vulnerabilities with Samy Kamkar

This week on Lock and Code, we discuss the top security headlines generated right here on Labs and around the Internet. In addition, we talk to Samy Kamkar, chief security officer and co-founder of Open Path, about the digital vulnerabilities in our physical world. If you look through a recent...

The Election Threats That Keep US Intelligence Up at Night

Government officials have increasingly sounded alarms on the risks of foreign interference and disinformation campaigns leading up to—and after—November 3...

Facebook Busts Russian Disinfo Networks as US Election Looms

The campaigns primarily targeted countries outside the US. But the same mechanisms could be used in “hack and leak” operations like those that roiled the 2016 campaign...

Inside the Twitter Hack—and What Happened Next

On July 15, a massive Twitter hack rocked the inside and out. On Election Day, that's not an option...

Gen Z Has a Plan to Save the Election—Starting With the Polls

Poll workers, who skew elderly, are in short supply during the pandemic. Meet some of the young people trying to make up the gap...

Stacey Abrams on How We’ll Beat Back Voter Suppression

The former Democratic candidate for Georgia governor talks democracy, election tech, and why speaking Klingon doesn’t always help. As told to Gilad Edelman...

How We’ll Know the Election Wasn’t Rigged

Whether you’re casting a ballot in person or by mail, there’s plenty to worry about. Mass voter fraud shouldn’t be on the list...

A Texas County Clerk’s Bold Crusade to Transform How We Vote

How Dana DeBeauvoir set off the biggest, weirdest, and most promising revolution in election technology since the 1800s...

Lock and Code S1Ep15: Safely using Google Chrome Extensions with Pieter Arntz

This week on Lock and Code, we discuss the top security headlines generated right here on Labs and around the Internet. In addition, we talk to Pieter Arntz, malware intelligence researcher for Malwarebytes, about Google Chrome extensions. These sometimes helpful online tools that work directly...

The informed voter’s guide to election cyberthreats

Singapore held its most recent general election on July 10 2020, and although they used the electoral system called first-past-the-post FPTP, a scheme favored by the US, UK, and most English-speaking countries, the road leading to Election Day was not without challenges and obstacles. While all...