By Brian NeSmith, CEO and co-founder of Arctic Wolf Networks Over half of the population claims to regularly see fake news on sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Yet, despite fake news being more commonplace than one would think, social media companies have been highly ineffective in doing anything — except around the most egregious…
Although Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen declared the 2018 midterms the nation’s most secure election ever, bad actors who hacked the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) apparently didn’t get the message. After one of its vendors noticed the intrusion last April, the NRCC launched an investigation and reported the incident to authorities, according…
The U.S. midterm election has passed without any disruptive cybersecurity incidents, but researchers at Bitdefender found some evidence of influence campaigns appearing and cybercriminals using election keywords for money-making scams. Bitdefender found four areas of concern. On the political side, it came across typosquatted domains registered by hackers to spread misinformation, particularly in Texas, or…
Noting that it was likely that the administration of former Georgia Secretary of State and self-proclaimed governor-elect Brian Kemp likely failed to “properly maintain a reliable and secure voter registration system,” a federal judge said the state must review provisional ballots cast in a contentious Nov. 6 election. In ruling on a case brought by…
It looks as though embattled Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who has been widely criticized for not recusing himself from an election in which he was a candidate for governor, has taken former President Jimmy Carter’s advice and resigned his office just hours before he was to appear in court to answer a lawsuit…
Amid the blue and red banners dotting social media, mailers, billboards, flyers and just about everything else, Election Day is finally here. After all the guesswork and polls, Americans don’t know which way the political winds are going to blow or whether security measures taken by many states are going to hold…or whether some sort…
Who’s in charge: State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax Oklahoma’s voting standards came under some scrutiny for some Election Day practices that are considered unsecure potentially leaving their electoral process open to being hacked. The Center for American Progress called out the state for its practice of allowing absentee ballots to be returned electronically, the…
Who’s in charge: Secretary of State John A. Gale Digital fingerprints tracing back to Russia were found probing for vulnerabilities on systems maintained by Election Systems & Software, an election services IT provider, back in 2016 when Russian threat actors attempted access the election systems of 20 other states. The company manages the Nebraska’s Voter…
Who’s in charge: Secretary of State William M. Gardner The state spent $250,000 of its nearly $3.2 million election security budget ($3.1 million in federal grant money and $155,000 in matching state funds) to improve systems for the 2018 midterm elections. Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said the state has hired firms to test…
Who’s in charge: Secretary of State Steve Simon Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said the state’s reliance on paper ballots is a cornerstone of ballot security and vote totals are reviewed by city, county, and state election officials several times before an election is ultimately certified by the state canvassing board. The electrical systems…
