The US elections are on a cyber terrorists hit list, Christopher Kerbs the director of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, mentioned that they are working to secure the 2020 elections from any possible cyberattacks.
The possible Russian interference in 2016 elections has left everybody speculating what is going to happen next. With the presidential elections 2020 looming in near future, officials are preparing ahead to combat any such attack.
According to the associated press an official repost on the possible cyber attacks during midterms was presented to the president. The report said there has been no evidence found to back off cyber attack or interference from any group or country.
The US officials believe that Russia, China, Iran and North Korea along with non-state actors and terrorist groups pose threat to US generally and the elections specifically.
As sabotaging a big event like the elections will cause mass anxiety and public unrest, it will be a good chance to scare the general population and effect the voting turnover. Cyber terrorists can possibly interfere with the results of the presidential elections.
The official report mentioned other threats such as power disruption or attack on infrastructure along with the cyber threats, it warns about the countries such as Iran and North Korea working on acquiring cyber capabilities as a serious threat to US. A report from spy agencies stated that Iran’s cyber capabilities and non-state Iranian hacker can attack the critical infrastructure in the USA. They also hack data of large corporate networks.
The threat from North Korean cyber criminals is mostly related to the banking scams and stealing money from public accounts. It is widely believed in the US that Russia spent a lot of effort and money into interfering with the US election system in the year 2016. It is a possibility that they might again try to hinder the process in one way or other during the next elections.
The US midterm elections witnessed great focus of all shareholders in the cyber security department. The midterms ended without the fiasco surrounding the 2016 elections, yet the cyber security measures for the next elections are not finalized as yet.
Even though there weren’t any reports of cyber-attacks during the midterm elections, the possible threat cannot be ruled out.
Another threat that we face is the misinformation spread through internet and fake social media accounts. Also, the enemies might attempt to manipulate election results by tempering with the voter’s data, or to influence the voting or vote count to raise questions on the whole election procedure.
The intelligence agencies are expecting our adversaries to use more sophisticated skills to attack our infrastructure and systems to impact the transparency of 2020 presidential elections.
We can expect a vicious, non-traditional attack on the US elections along with the regular malware, ransomware, or data hacking. Intelligence agencies and home department is working closely to prevent any loss or damage to the elections by the terrorists.
