Could Ransomware Affect The Upcoming Election

As we approach Election Day on Tuesday, November 3rd, fears are bubbling up about potential election interference from ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that locks up a user’s system or device and makes it unusable. In politics, it can have a much worse effect such as when it was targeted onto Baltimore’s city government, the University of California, and the website of an Illinois public health district. Even large companies have been affected with Microsoft stating that it took down a major hacking network that was being used to spread ransomware.

In the context of elections, ransomware can freeze user access to voter polls or websites displaying election results. According to Jason Healey, a cybersecurity expert at Columbia University, “The concern at [the Department of Homeland Security] and the Pentagon will be that ransomware will hit at the county and state level to disable voting registers, vote tallying and reporting, and result reporting.” While this may seem like a very important issue, there are some factors that can help to combat this issue. One reason is that the ransomware would have to adapt to different types of software that are used. Every voting jurisdiction uses different software so in order to infiltrate the system, an individualized attack would have to be created slowing down the efficiency of the attacks.

As a result, the US government has issued public advisories warning of the potential threat of ransomware. Government officials have been investing in stronger firewalls, better risk analysis platforms, and device protection as well as keeping important voting infrastructure from other systems. Cities are starting to become more and more prepared than before. The ways to combat ransomware are simple: “Create regular backups of your data that you store offline. Learn to recognize fraudulent emails or links and try to avoid falling for them. Keep your devices and apps up to date with the latest security updates.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/tech/ransomware-2020-election/index.html

10 thoughts on “Could Ransomware Affect The Upcoming Election

  1. Elections being hacked is a problem that has becoming more and more dangerous every year. In 2016 there were accusations of Russian hackers changing the election. This was found to not be true. We are just 2 days away from what seems to be the most controversial election in decades. With both parties becoming more and more polarized, people from each side would do whatever it takes to getting their candidate in office. The Department of Homeland Security is ramping up protection of this election. This will be their largest operation to secure the election in history. They will be working 24/7 during and shortly after the election to make sure this election stays safe.

    Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/30/dhs-is-planning-largest-ever-operation-secure-us-election-against-hacking/

  2. Technology companies have been working on ways to prevent this issue from happening, but this situation is inevitable. There will always be sides unhappy with the outcome and with the extra precautions taken, I am hopeful this won’t be an issue for this election. Because of the pandemic, more people will be mailing in votes rather than going to polling places which could help make this issue less prevalent. Good point about all the districts using different systems, it would be hard to shut down all of them at once.
    https://www.vox.com/recode/21454807/open-sourced-election-tech-vote-misinformation

  3. This is a really important issue. WIth time, cybersecurity is becoming really important. It is easy to think that applying technology to everything will make our lives easier, but we have to always consider how reliable a system is. When that idea is applied to things like elections, this is even more important. It is necessary that these kinds of systems are as reliable as possible, as it is possible that a group of hackers could influence the elections and change the lives of the whole country. These ransomware attacks have been increasing, but it is clear that the US government is taking actions to prevent bigger issues.

    Source: https://gcn.com/articles/2020/10/30/ransomware-elections.aspx

  4. This is definitely an interesting topic. From what I have been hearing the biggest outside threats for this election is foreign influence through the use of the influence of cyberattacks. Personally, I think influencing is the most game-changing type of influence because it is still down to each and every vote, the discussion of the electoral college apart. Despite cyber attacks, ransomware, the most important action is still down to the vote that voters cast on election day. There a good number of people are still undecided and what they see in the next two days on social media could influence that they make at that moment when they cast their ballot. In terms of ransomware, it could potentially cause some detrimental effects on the voting websites or systems on election day. The best way to steer away from misinformation and influences is really up to us to filter that out and also being vigilant about suspicious links of Softwares that could potentially be ransomware.

  5. Ransomware seems to be a hot topic as of recently with all the world and international events taking place and it seems to be no surprise. Considering what I had learned last year before COVID in my Criminal Justice class, online attacks are becoming more and more prevalent as technology advances with the internet also advancing at a swift pace. I had learned that it is easy for people to send in DDOS attacks that will disable any polling venue by overloading it with information packets. It is hard to detect where it is coming from because of the recent widespread use of VPN’s and Proxys available to the general public. It seems with this year being so contested with the presidential election along with all the other issues happening right now. This will definitely be a year to highlight how ransomware can affect various things on the national level.

  6. The threat of ransomware on our voting is an interesting question this year over any other for two main reasons. The first reason is that more people are relying on these web systems to sign up for absentee ballots than ever before. As well, while infrastructure has gotten harder to attack as you mentioned with stronger firewalls and protections, things like ransomware and viruses have also become more sophisticated.

    As you mentioned, we have seen ransomware attacks in places like hospitals before, where a lot of money and precious time was lost. I think voting systems could be a possible prime target for ransomware attacks, so its something people need to be aware of. My own county absentee page seemed to be very outdated in style, so it may be safe to assume the protection technology backing it may be as well. I hope to see implementations made to protect against threats like this.

  7. I recently saw an article talking about something similar to this. As a society, the more technologically advanced we get, the more susceptible we are to hackers. I think that online voting is a great option for people who are immune compromised and don’t want to go out and vote. However, this is an issue that we have to take into consideration. It is a sad reality to think about, but important.

  8. I remember a topic similar to this coming up in my Crisis Communications class last year and the professor strongly warned us that, next to a pandemic (he literally said this before COVID existed which still blows my mind, that one of the most dangerous threats to our country and the world right now is the threat to cyber security. So so much of our daily lives is involved in computing information and storing important data online without us realizing that no matter how safe we think we are, the threat to this information being stolen and used against us or to hurt this country is extreme and should be watched closely. Because this is such a huge issue, I wasn’t surprised when I read that ransomware is a major threat to this upcoming election because it involves this concept of virtual security. I think that the status of the past election and how involved Russia was in it just continues to support how possible it is to tamper with an election. Regardless of what side you’re on or who you support, the tampering of any information like this is scary and should remind us how safe we have to be and how at risk we are of such an attack.

  9. I believe that ransomware could affect the election. As the election is becoming more and more reliant on technology, ransomware poses a much bigger threat every 4 years. As we continue to advance in technology, it can continue to make the elections easier to do from home, but it also is very bad because it makes us far mar susceptible to ransomware. It would be absolutely terrible but it is the reality that it could happen this year.

  10. I was recently reading an article on twitter about this exact issue, so when seeing this post, I decided to look into it more. According to an article in Info-security Magazine, ransomware will pose a huge threat to the 2020 election in many ways. It is not only a threat on Election Day, but pre and post election activities are also at risk. It talked about the threat of “attacks of voter registration information could involve tampering with or deleting voter registration details so that he potential voter is unregistered and thus unable to vote.” This was very interesting because me, as well as many others, only think of the actual votes are getting tampered with, not voters’ registrations. Election Day activities threats include if voting on a DRE, the data is susceptible for cyber-attacks by hackers. Overall, the advancement of technology is going to pose a threat no matter what is going on, but when it comes to the election, hackers from around the world may tamper with the results to see an outcome they want. The scariest part is the we don’t even know it is happening until it is over.

    Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ransomware-2020-election/

Leave a Reply