The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, act as legal, financial or credit advice; instead, it is for general informational purposes only. Information on this website may not be current. This website may contain links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser; we do not recommend or endorse the contents of any third-party sites. Readers of this website should contact their attorney, accountant or credit counselor to obtain advice with respect to their particular situation. No reader, user, or browser of this site should act or not act on the basis of information on this site. Always seek personal legal, financial or credit advice for your relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney or advisor can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this website or any of the links or resources contained within the site do not create an attorney-client or fiduciary relationship between the reader, user, or browser and website owner, authors, contributors, contributing firms, or their respective employers.
Credit.com receives compensation for the financial products and services advertised on this site if our users apply for and sign up for any of them. Compensation is not a factor in the substantive evaluation of any product.
When Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump said he hoped the Russian government had found Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails, he wasn’t just taking a swipe at his opponent. He highlighted a very real and present danger to our democracy.
While social media users were atwitter about whether or not The Donald had committed treason—for the record, he didn’t—I don’t know if his quasi-seditious braggadocio reveals anything about his loyalty to the country he hopes to represent at home and abroad. Personally, it made me wonder about his fitness to lead a nation daily engaged in cyber military operations that almost certainly make the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear program look like Day One.
And far more importantly, it made me question whether Trump understands just how serious the threat of hacking is — and that such a lack of understanding could cost him the election.
We now have fresh evidence that suggests Russia (its leader, an apparent fan of the Republican nominee) hacked the DNC, and that another incursion into the computer systems used by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign (as well as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) discovered days later also appeared to be the work of a Russian government agency, according to The New York Times.
If the idea of a foreign country influencing the outcome of the 2016 race is both slightly terrifying and gets your patriotic juices flowing, consider that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has also suggested he intends to harm Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, also according to the Times.
The problem of hacking with regard to this election, however, is far from contained to espionage for advantage and the caprices of self-proclaimed moral crusaders.
Here are five other ways hacking could influence the election.
Currently 25 states accommodate voters who qualify to cast a ballot through either a website or via email. And then there’s online voter registration. Each of these conveniences carries with it the potential for subversion and exploitation.
It’s also worth noting that our most sacred right in this nation does not enjoy protection from Homeland Security. Each state runs its own voting, and cyber security competence is something that varies greatly from state to state.
Not all states “airgap” their voting machines. Airgapping means the machines are never connected to the Internet, and thus are much harder to compromise.
While there isn’t anything precluding a hacker from attempting to rig a machine one way or another, an article on the left-leaning CounterPunch site, argued that the states where machines are most vulnerable to compromise lean anti-Clinton.
When Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center earlier this year lost access to crucial files to hackers, they had to pay a ransom of $17,000. What happens if a similar attack on a state’s voter information is successful? Here too, Homeland Security has no oversight, and state cyber security protocols vary widely.
As Julian Assange has clearly demonstrated, the incredibly rich, granular and varied personal information that political campaigns collect to better target potential voters is not sufficiently protected from outside malefactors.
One thing that hackers do particularly well is spam, and doubtless there are numerous email lists that target particular demographics in crucial voting districts. All that needs to happen here is a little misinformation: maybe the spam says your polling station is closed, or due to a terrorist threat there may be delays. It doesn’t take much to discourage potential voters.
With both candidates receiving daily intelligence briefings, it seems like a good time to wonder out loud about the security of that information, since strategies and messaging based on it will almost certainly be emailed among campaign staff and stored on campaign servers.
While there is wisdom in the states controlling their own voting systems that finds its origins in our Constitution, there is also a new threat out there. And while I’m not sure it makes sense to put voting under the control of a federal entity, it might benefit from greater oversight.
As Stewart Baker, a former top guy at Homeland Security and the National Security Administration said recently regarding the cyber threat in this election: “It’s hanging chads weaponized.”
This story is an Op/Ed contribution to Credit.com and does not necessarily represent the views of the company or its partners.
Image: Pamela Moore
September 13, 2021
Uncategorized
August 4, 2021
Uncategorized
January 28, 2021
Uncategorized