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Government CIO Outlook | Thursday, September 17, 2020
Ransomware might be a substantial threat to the US election infrastructure, as aging software and potentially vulnerable voting machines can be an easy target of criminal elements or foreign-based cyber-attacks.
FREMONT, CA: Ransomware can be deployed and laid out in wait to be activated on the election day, or once the voting machines are activated, and then might pose a significant threat to voting processes and procedures, potentially resulting in a halt to the voting operations. The threats from ransomware or any other kind of cyberattack need not come solely from the foreign governments; rather, it can be launched by any criminal threat actor seeking financial gain.
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[vendor_logo_first]A cyber or a physical attack on the election infrastructure, even if the election systems or processes are interconnected or not, might lead to an overall election system dysfunction, errors in the vote count, delays in the voting results, and erroneous election reporting.
It is claimed that the essential elements of security are the ones that the attackers will most likely target first, and the first line of defense against the cyber-intrusion, and other threats, has to be a secure and resilient US election infrastructure.
The NTT has determined the threats to be in three areas:
Threats to pre-election activities: Attacks of voter registration information can include tampering with or deleting the voter registration details so that the potential voter is unregistered and unable to vote. Also, malware planted on a voter registration system might compromise the integrity of that data. Finally, the voters’ data could be mined for personal identifying information and kept for ransom or sold for criminal profit on the dark web.
Threats to election day activities: Voting on a Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machine could be susceptible to physical damage by a cyber-attack, while election results submitted electronically, or through email on election night, face cyber-threats, and an attacker could plant malware on the optical scan machine at any point from the warehouse to delivery, to set up at polling locations.
Threats to post-election activities: NTT admitted that these are reduced, as the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published the Cyber Incident Detection and Notification Planning Guide for Election Security among materials to help state and local election officials strengthen their election security.
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