No significant foreign interference was observed in the mid-term vote
No significant foreign interference was observed in the mid-term vote
US security officials and social media firms said on Tuesday they saw a limited amount of deliberate misinformation aimed at the midterm elections, but had not observed any significant effort to directly violate the electoral infrastructure with cyber attacks.
Concerns about a potentially calamitous attack from Russia or elsewhere began to diminish, even when government agencies, such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, remained on alert.
Several officials said that misinformation in social networks had emerged as their main concern. In a brief press conference on Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said federal agencies had not seen any intrusion into voting systems or the related election team, and promised consequences for any foreign adversary who tried.
"At this time, we have no indication of commitment to our nation's electoral infrastructure that prevents voting, changing vote counts or distrusting the ability to count votes," Nielsen said.
Voters cast their votes on Tuesday in what experts said would be the safest election in the United States. UU Since the birth of the Internet, thanks to the steps taken since 2016 by state and federal agencies to strengthen the cybersecurity of voting systems.
But security breaches remained in several states, and senior US officials have repeatedly warned that Russia and others continue to try to interfere with American democracy.
Recorded Future, a cybersecurity firm based in the USA. UU., He had tracked a network of social media accounts of alleged Russian origin that greatly impelled the extreme right-wing content that supports Mr. Trump. But the firm suspected that other Russian trolls were also promoting messages from the far left to maximize Moscow's goal of inflaming the political divisions of the United States.
As election day progressed, said Priscilla Moriuchi, the firm's strategic threat development director, those accounts began aggressively pushing allegations of voter fraud in Texas, Florida and Ohio, states where Democrats expected to take office. key and the Republicans were in defense.
Monday afternoon
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He said he had responded to a suggestion by the US police and suspended 30 Facebook accounts and 85 more on Instagram that officials said the company could involve in foreign activities. A person familiar with the matter said that the tip was brought to Facebook by the FBI. The Office refused to comment.
Voters across the country will go to the polls on Tuesday to cast their votes in the general election. Gerald F. Seib of the WSJ explains five areas that are worth observing as the results appear. Photo: Getty
DHS officials did not provide additional details about the deletions of the Facebook account. A Facebook spokesman said the company had no further information, as it was in the early stages of its own investigation.
Facebook accounts that were eliminated were predominantly in French and Russian, while Instagram accounts were largely in English, the company said Monday. Instagram is owned by Facebook.
On Tuesday night, Facebook said it had closed more accounts after a website that claimed to be affiliated with Internet Research Agency LLC, backed by Russia, published a list of approximately 90 Instagram accounts that said it had operated to influence the chose.
Facebook could not say if the website, called Usaira.ru, was operated by the Russian-backed organization accused by federal prosecutors of interfering in the 2016 elections. However, the company lowered accounts. "We had already blocked most of these accounts yesterday, and now we have blocked the rest," Facebook said in a statement.
DHS officials refused to comment on the website, deferring to the FBI. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also on Tuesday, Facebook said it had taken action against certain inaccurate voting information, such as messages saying that Republicans vote on Tuesday and Democrats vote on Wednesday or vice versa. The company also said that some content falsely claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from the United States would be patrolling the polling sites in an effort to find immigrants.
Two years ago, electoral systems in states across the country were investigated by suspected Russian hackers, and in one state, Illinois, voter registration databases were violated. Russian agents also pirated and published Democratic emails and published divisive disinformation on social media to boost Donald Trump's candidacy, according to US intelligence agencies.
Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in other countries' elections.
More 2018 Elections Coverage
Facebook said last year that publications created in Russia reached approximately 146 million people in its network, including 20 million people on Instagram. Since then, Facebook has found smaller batches of fake accounts created by people in Iran and Russia, even at the end of October, which were apparently intended to influence political discussion.
Federal agencies received some reports of misinformation related to the election, said the DHS official, although he did not identify any specific content and praised the social media companies for responding quickly.
Some of the erroneous information was accidental, the official added, such as the expected exit vote messages that were sent on Monday and sent out on Tuesday and included a language like "vote tomorrow." In general, the level of misinformation was not out of the ordinary, the official said.
State and federal officials said they have significantly improved their communication and coordination on election security issues since 2016. As of Tuesday afternoon, 45 states had logged into a new "situational awareness" room operated by DHS, a web portal for real-time communications about potential threats It was expected that more states would participate as the day progressed.
Recorded Future said that it had been studying Russian-influenced operations in social networks prior to the mid-term exams and found that Moscow's tactics are changing since 2016 by pushing verifiable and false information to a greater emphasis on promoting "hyperpartist" perspectives. .
In 2018, Russia "explicitly defends[d] for specific candidates and political positions, "said Ms. Moriuchi, adding that Moscow's tactics have become more difficult to detect.
"We've seen a change in tactics in the last two weeks to make it look more real and legitimate," said Ms. Moriuchi, a former analyst with the National Security Agency.
Some officials said that it was possible for the adversaries to keep the fire in the midterms, but they would almost certainly return with vigor in the next presidential elections. "The game continues," Chris Krebs, a senior DHS cybersecurity official, said in an interview. "We are already thinking about what 2020 will be like."
-Robert McMillan and Deepa Seetharaman contributed to this article.
Write to Dustin Volz in dustin.volz@wsj.com
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