Critical Infrastructure Security

Google: US midterms less likely to be targeted by Chinese, Iranian hackers

Chinese and Iranian state-sponsored hacking groups are not expected to engage in election hacking efforts as rigorous as those conducted in the 2020 elections for this year's midterms, ABC News reports. Hacking activity has been "relatively quiet" as the midterm polls near, as opposed to the extensive operations targeted at email accounts involved in the campaigns of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump two years ago, according to Google Threat Analysis Group Senior Director Shane Huntley. Disinformation efforts, however, continue to be a focus for other threat groups, Huntley added. "There's a lot happening behind the scenes, but we haven't seen that sort of cyberattack nature that we've sort of have seen in previous years," he said. Meanwhile, Google Vice President of Security Engineering Heather Adkins noted that passwords will eventually be replaced by security keys and passkeys for passwordless sign-ins within the next five years. "The reality is that everyone's gonna get hacked at some point. And the differentiator will become how quickly we recover from that. And you actually see that in Ukraine," said Adkins.

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