Executives from leading technology and social media firms convened with U.S. intelligence representatives yesterday to discuss ongoing efforts to shield their platforms and users from election interference campaigns. According to Bloomberg and additional news outlets, Facebook used its Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters to host the meeting, which was attended by Google, Microsoft, Twitter and members…
In the runup to the 2020 presidential election Facebook shared additional steps it is taking to help ensure campaign ads are properly attributed and vetted. Katie Harbath, Facebook’s public policy director, global elections, said the changes include strengthening the authorization process for U.S. advertisers and showing users more information about each advertiser. This includes placing…
Concerned about cyberattacks on the 2020 elections after evidence that Russian hackers accessed voter registration systems in 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) introducing a new program next month to protect the systems as well as voter registration databases. “Recent history has shown that state and county governments and those who support them are…
While a U.S. District Court judge has rebuffed attempts to move Georgia’s fall municipal elections to paper ballots, she did order the state to replace its direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines with paper ballot systems by its March 24 presidential primary. “The court prohibits any use of the GEMS/DRE system after 2019,” Judge Amy…
Despite having some policies in place, the U.S. government is largely unprepared for a large-scale cyberattack, though the white hat hacker community could help it identify weak points and harden security. “No,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., when asked during the Def Con “Hacking Congress” panel whether the government was well-positioned to fend off attackers.…
Despite claims by voting machine makers and election officials that election systems are immune to hackers because they’re not connected to the internet, the Election Systems & Software voting systems in 10 states, some of them swing states, were found to be just that – connected, a team of security researchers found. Systems from the…
Russian state-sponsored cyber actors “conducted an unprecedented level of activity against state election infrastructure in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. elections,” the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concludes in the first volume of its report on Russia’s efforts to interference in America’s most recent presidential election. Released yesterday, volume one focuses specifically on…
Despite Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s slow, halting cadence, and apparent difficulty hearing or understanding some questions put to him by members of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the former FBI director delivered a clear message – Russia engaged in a sweeping campaign to me the 2016 U.S. election and those efforts will intensify in 2020…
On the same day that former U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller publicly testified that Russia is actively taking measures to interfere with America’s 2020 elections, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the passage of three bills designed to boost the security of elections or the federal government. Yesterday, the senator rejected two separate bills (1, 2),…
At a time when securing the 2020 U.S. presidential election and election influence campaigns on social media are at the forefront of the news, Mozilla is claiming that a Facebook tool designed to examine campaign ads is not working as advertised. Mozilla said in a blog post that information that’s being released by Facebook through…
