Belts of the United States for a possible Russian meddling on the day of the elections
Belts of the United States for a possible Russian meddling on the day of the elections
Two years ago, Rob Silvers arrived at a bland federal building in suburban Washington, Virginia, on Election Day, fearing the United States was about to be hit by a catastrophic cyber attack.
An alleged Russian operation hack Democratic emails and the divisive misinformation on sale was made in months; the electoral systems throughout the country had been investigated by alleged Russian hackers; and one state, Illinois, had seen its voter registration database violated.
"There was not a playbook," said Mr. Silvers, then a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security, now a partner with the law firm Paul Hastings. "We were writing the playbook while we were executing it."
Their worst fears never materialized, but Russia's supposed actions convinced officials that cybersecurity would be a critical aspect of any future election. This year, voters will vote on what experts say will be the safest choice in the United States since the birth of the Internet, thanks to the steps taken since 2016.
"States across the country are more prepared," said Wayne Williams, Colorado's Republican secretary of state, who is among the most active in adopting electoral cybersecurity measures.
DHS is leading the effort in protection Voting machines, which provide states with more electoral security services after the 2016 elections. The FBI has focused on combating foreign interference in social networks. Both efforts have received the support of the intelligence agencies of the United States.
In many states, election officials have spent the past two years hiring technology experts, establishing cybersecurity training for election workers, enrolling in free DHS computer exploits and, in some cases, buying new voting equipment. with backing of ballots that can be audited The event of cybernetic mischief.
A group funded by DHS that was formed last February to share information on cybersecurity among election officials and federal partners has the participation of all 50 states and more than 1,300 local officials. It did not exist in 2016.
"We are light years ahead of where we were two years ago, and before that we were even more backward," said David Becker, a former Justice Department official and founder of the nonprofit Center for Electoral Research and Innovation. "Not only now do we know the nature of the threat, but today's systems are more secure than they have ever been. That does not mean that they are invulnerable, they never are. "
Officials worry that Russia or others may implement new unpredictable tactics on Election Day, and are puzzled by how quiet the Russian hackers have been with 2016, when they allegedly hacked and leaked emails from the best Democrats and specific voting systems.
"If we have learned something about how the Russians operate in this space, it is that when they return they are better and they are different," Chris Krebs, a senior DHS cyber security official, said in an interview.
There is no evidence that the electoral infrastructure, including voter registration systems or voting machines, has been targeted by Russia, but Moscow remains the target. trying to spread misinformation in
and YouTube, according to senior officials. A recent Morning Consult / Politico poll found that almost half of Americans think that Russia is trying to interfere with Tuesday's vote.
Some proponents of the integrity of the elections and former officials have blamed Trump's government, and specifically President Trump, for not doing more to elevate and highlight the problem.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly downplayed or denied Russia's interference in the 2016 elections. Russia has denied having attempted to interfere in elections in the United States or elsewhere.
There are security gaps yet to be filled. Voting machines have been replaced or updated in some states, but others rely on obsolete equipment or have a known cyber vulnerability.
For example, model 650. high speed ballot counting machine made by Election Systems & Software LLC, used in half of the states, has a flaw detected more than a decade ago that could give a bad actor with physical access the ability to change a vote count.
The Model 650 is still being sold on the ES & S website, but a spokeswoman said it stopped manufacturing the systems in 2008 and that it would be "extraordinarily difficult to hack into a real-world environment."
Only one state, Virginia, has completely replaced its paperless voting machines since the 2016 elections. Five states - Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Delaware and New Jersey - continue to rely entirely on paperless machines, and several others, including Pennsylvania, they have some counties that lack a paper backup. Most have taken at least initial steps to exchange them by 2020, although funding remains a challenge.
Officials quickly point out that the voting machines themselves are generally not connected to the Internet.
More difficult to solve, they say, is Russia's sophisticated use of social networks to influence voters, tactics that have been replicated, with less sophistication, by Iran. Facebook and other social media companies face pressure to do more to contain the tide.
Facebook has partnered with fact checkers to capture posts that link to fake news articles, which will then be downgraded in the news source. In September, he expanded that data verification program to include photos and videos. Facebook has also created a file of political announcements so that external groups can track paid political activity.
Prior to the partial exams, Facebook has what it calls a "war room" with employees who see user complaints and track viral publications.
Cyber analysts see ongoing failures in the Facebook system, and executives say that problems are unlikely to evaporate completely. False rumors about the election and candidates increased in WhatsApp, Facebook's encrypted messaging application, before the recent election in Brazil.
The intelligence agencies of the United States are also contributing to the efforts. This summer, Mr. Trump replaced the classified rules of the Obama era It governs the use of offensive cyberweapons as part of an impulse to give the Pentagon a freer hand to implement such tools, a pivot that, according to administration officials, supports electoral security efforts.
The officers of the US Cyber Command UU In recent weeks they began to point out to Russian intelligence agents the intention to spread the disinformation that they are being monitored, according to people familiar with the effort.
Mr. Silvers, the former DHS official, said that while the preparation has improved, more is needed, including from Mr. Trump and Congress.
"There has been significant progress, but it's not enough," Silvers said. "In 2016, it was a really new point to make it possible to have a cybersecurity vulnerability to the electoral process. It is no longer a novel. "
- Deepa Seetharaman in San Francisco contributed to this article.
Write to Dustin Volz in dustin.volz@wsj.com
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