Cyber Scene #47 - Thunderbolts: Cybersecurity-charged Elections
Cyber Scene #47 -
Thunderbolts: Cybersecurity-charged Elections
Just as cyber connectivity underpins all academic year 2020-2021 education under the covid19 cloud, so too does it flow over, under and through all aspects of the upcoming election. This cybersecurity current runs deep, fast and expands pervasively.
The cybersecurity role in voting has arisen in earlier Cyber Scenes, but its importance and evolution cannot be undervalued nor dismissed given the upcoming 3 November general and presidential election.
Most of one's daily life in First World countries, most Second and many Third, holds cyber as its lifeline. Food deliveries ordered on line, Amazon's consolidated shopping options, connectivity to family and friends via Zoom, WhatsApp, WeChat (at least as of this writing), and other cyber-supported developments have built a solid, expansive and dense bedrock for nearly all aspects of our day. Education is one of them. Schools at all levels are choosing online or hybrid options. Some educational institutions which have already started in person are shifting to the former two options as students test positive, along with increasing data regarding children's pandemic vulnerability and contagiousness.
One exception to this transition is the shift to online voting. For better or worse, only a handful of states allow it. "Politico's" Eric Geller points out that the US has not addressed cybersecurity integrity and voter privacy at the national level. He goes on to note that to be secure, technology would need to be developed that "...allows voters' computers and phones to demonstrate that they are malware-free and end-to-end encryption to protect ballots in transit."
US military and expats living overseas historically have been allowed to vote online as have those with disabilities in several states, according to the US National Conference of State Legislatures. As of August 2020, online registration has been in place for dozens of states and the District of Columbia, and obtaining absentee ballots, some for "any reason," is common practice across many states. Each state, as the online registration link denotes, has its own rules. But online voting itself has not been deployed broadly across the US. The option most secure remains in-person voting on a secure system with paper backup.
Choosing a voting option if you have one, is also imperiled by existing and new nation-state cyber threats. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) on 18 August issued its nearly 1,000-page redacted Russian Interference 2016 Election, Volume 5 and final report. Many of the issues have been in the public domain. However, according to New York Times intelligence reporter Mark Mazzetti, the report "shed new light on the interaction between Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks--and between WikiLeaks and the GOP 2016 presidential campaign." The Senate report did not criticize the FBI for anything it did, but on the contrary, rather said that it "...should have done more to alert higher-level officials at the Democratic National Committee that their servers may have been infiltrated by Russian hackers." Considering how much time and effort the bipartisan SSCI members spent on compiling 5 volumes of countless data following countless interviews and tracking down countless issues on counterintelligence and vulnerabilities, election security and cyber interference, perhaps it does merit an undigested read.
Separately, the NYT Magazine of 16 August features an in depth study, in print and audio, by Robert Draper , of the issue of projected Russian interference in the 2020 and 2024 elections, as viewed by the US Intelligence Community (IC).
Facebook is prepositioning itself as a cybersecurity "keeper of integrity" to thwart some of these ancillary threats, both already manifested and anticipated. As reported by NYT's Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel, Facebook is girding up for November. It has reportedly spent years preparing to avoid tampering on its site, as noted in the article. Facebook executives are reportedly considering a "...'kill switch' to shut off political advertising after Election Day since the ads, which Facebook does not police for truthfulness, could be used to spread misinformation."