Buying Used Voting Machines on eBay

This is not surprising: This year, I bought two more machines to see if security had improved. To my dismay, I discovered that the newer model machines -- those that were used in the 2016 election -- are running Windows CE and have USB ports, along with other components, that make them even easie...

Nation-State Phishing: A Country-Sized Catch

Thanks to the traditional role of phishing in widespread email scams, there is a general tendency to equate it with clearly fraudulent and obnoxiously implausible emails. While this misperception has not evolved, phishing campaigns have. Andrea Little Limbago Once a threat that went hand-in-hand...

Compromising vital infrastructure: how voting machines and elections are vulnerable

In our first post in a series about vital infrastructure, we aim to explore how secure our voting machines—and our votes in general—are ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Here, we ask ourselves: How can our infrastructure be compromised? What are the consequences, and how can we prevent...

Information operations on Twitter: new data released on election tampering

Back in April, we talked about the wealth of options available to Russian hackers and others launching social engineering campaigns, whether on social networks or through clever attacks launched via Advanced Persistent Threats. Some of that was information published by Twitter at the time in...

Facebook Expands Efforts to Squash Voter Suppression

Facebook plans to expand its content-policing on its site, aiming to crack down on profiles and pages that it deems are aimed at voter suppression ahead of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. Specifically, social-media giant will penalize those that spread disinformation about voting requirements wi...

A week in security (October 8 – 14)

Last week, we warned you away from some dubious Doctor Who streams, explained how Endpoint Detection and Response may not be enough, and explored what happens during a confusing supply chain story. We also showed you how to keep up with security, explained the risks of fake browser updates, and...

Don't Buy the Trump Administration's China Misdirection

The White House keeps accusing China of election interference—but it's nothing like Russia in 2016...

Trump's New Executive Order Slaps a Bandaid on Election Interference Problems

Trump’s order creates a framework to sanction foreign meddling in elections, but experts say it’s not enough...

NSA Leaker 'Reality Winner' Gets More Than 5 Years in Prison

A former NSA contractor, who pleaded guilty to leaking a classified report on Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to an online news outlet last year, has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison. Reality Winner, a 26-year-old Georgia woman who held a top-secret...

NSA Leaker 'Reality Winner' Gets More Than 5 Years in Prison

A former NSA contractor, who pleaded guilty to leaking a classified report on Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to an online news outlet last year, has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison. Reality Winner, a 26-year-old Georgia woman who held a top-secret...

DNC: Highly Publicized ‘Phishing Attempt’ Was Only a Security Test

A day after the Democratic National Committee riled up security researchers and the press, it’s walking back an assertion that there was an attempt to compromise its voter database. Though it seemed like the event was the latest in a series of malicious efforts designed to harvest credentials...

DNC Becomes Latest Target in Series of Election-Season Attacks

UPDATE The Democratic National Committee said Wednesday that it reportedly disrupted an attempt to compromise its voter database – apparently the latest in a series of malicious efforts designed to harvest credentials belonging political targets or influence the electorate ahead of the November...

Defending Elections from Foreign Adversaries: Election Buster

Election Buster is an open source tool created in 2014 to identify malicious domains masquerading as candidate webpages and voter registration systems. During 2016, fake domains were used to compromise credentials of a Democratic National Committee DNC IT services company, and foreign adversaries...

Microsoft Detects More Russian Cyber Attacks Ahead of Mid-Term Election

Microsoft claims to have uncovered another new Russian hacking attempts targeting United States' Senate and conservative think tanks ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. The tech giant said Tuesday that the APT28 hacking group—also known as Strontium, Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm,...

ThreatList: Almost All Security Pros Believe Election Systems Are at Risk

As the U.S. midterm election season gets underway in earnest, concerns about the ability to hack the vote is more in the spotlight than ever. A fresh survey from Venafi has found that a full 93 percent of security pros are concerned about cyber-attacks targeting election infrastructure. The poll,...

Defcon: 11-year-old modifies Florida Presidential voting results

By Waqas At the largest hacking conference in the world, Defcon 2018, there have been many surprising discoveries. However, the news that has shocked the United States is the hacking and modifications of election results by young kids. The 26th Defcon conference is being held in Las Vegas...

DEF CON 2018: Voting Hacks Prompt Push Back from Election Officials, Vendors

LAS VEGAS – DEF CON 26, building on its work in hacking ballot machines last year, saw three days of probing into various aspects of the end-to-end voting infrastructure in place in the U.S., including a voter registration database and election reporting websites. Several vulnerabilities and...

This Week in Security News: Hijacks and Healthcare

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, Singapore looks into the effectiveness of virtual browsers in an attempt to reduce cyberattacks on healthcare systems. Also, cybercriminals...

Facebook Removes 17 Profiles Involved in Political Meddling

Facebook Tuesday said that it has removed 32 pages from its platform involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The action comes months before the November midterm elections – and at a time when all eyes are on Facebook to see how it protects against potential campaigns attempting to sway...

Microsoft Says Russia Tried to Hack Three 2018 Midterm Election Candidates

Microsoft said it detected and helped the US government to block Russian hacking attempts against at least three congressional candidates this year, a Microsoft executive revealed speaking at the Aspen Security Forum today. Although the company refused to name the targets but said, the three...