Understanding the Impact of Election Interference Campaigns This Election Day

Today is Election Day here in the U.S. when American citizens will choose who will lead the country during the next four years. And it’s safe to say that this is an Election Day unlike any others in history.

The ongoing election is being held with the backdrop of a global pandemic that has forced massive changes in behavior and even impacted how and when people have voted. As of Sunday morning, more than 93 million early votes had been cast. That is double the early voting numbers from the previous election in 2016 and has many political experts anticipating potentially record-breaking voter turnout for this election.

But today’s election will be notable for many reasons aside from the pandemic and turnout. It will also be another election in which foreign nations and adversaries have worked to exploit new technologies to influence the result. In fact, there are already numerous instances where overt attempts have been made to utilize digital communications and online tools to influence this election.

According to a recent announcement from the FBI, both Iran and Russia have obtained U.S. voter information. Election officials said that bad actors in Iran posed as the far-right group called the Proud Boys and sent intimidating emails to voters. Intelligence Officials say that this voter intimidation operation used email addresses obtained from state voter registration lists, including party affiliation and home addresses, targeting specific voters in crucial swing states.

According to Adam Meyers, the SVP of Intelligence at CrowdStrike, this is indicative of a large and growing problem around the globe when it comes to democratic elections.

During a recent webinar entitled “Protecting Our Nation’s Election Infrastructure in 2020,” Adam explained the motivations behind attacks launched by threat actors who are targeting government agencies and private companies. He also explained the methods and tools that these malicious actors are using in an attempt to influence elections and shape opinions.

One of the most interesting takeaways from Adam’s presentation is how misinformed many Americans are towards election interference campaigns. While many Americans think that election hacking or election interference refers to the actual hacking of voting systems and changing of results, that simply isn’t the case. As Adam explained:

The biggest misconception around election security…is that they’re going to hack into voting machines and literally change the vote. That would require remarkable coordination and capabilities to do that. What is more likely and effective is influence operations and changing people’s perception of what is going on.

Misinformation campaigns have been going on actively during the 2020 election, and are something that we’ll undoubtedly see more examples of this Election Day. Why? According to Adam, election interference campaigns have three potential goals.

“[One] goal can be to conduct espionage and collect information…they want to understand the talking points and how [the election results] will impact their broader objectives,” Adam explained. “The second goal is influence – attempting to change how people think about the election and the candidates. And the third thing is obstruction – creating some sort of barrier to the electoral process.”

According to Adam, there are a number of tools that malicious actors use to perpetrate these attacks, ranging from offensive cyber operations utilizing phishing, spear phishing, account compromise, and software exploits. These tools are used to get into the accounts of campaigns and political candidates in order to conduct espionage and disruption.

Other attacks utilize human-enabled operations that involve the presence of a person that is directly involved in a campaign or political organization. Finally, there are coordinated misinformation campaigns – which we’ve seen in abundance this election season – that utilize propaganda sites and state-owned media to spread disinformation and increase attention to particular new stories that favor a preferred candidate.

While today may be the end of the political ads and political robocalls, there is no end in sight to election interference. These threats range from disqualifying legitimate voters to corrupting data, spreading misinformation, and creating distrust in the election process. And, as long as there is a benefit to the nation-states and hacker groups driving this activity, election interference will most likely be a part of our election process moving forward.

For additional information on election interference, check out Adam’s recent election security interview on CBS nightly news, and be sure to watch the CrowdStrike webinar, “Protecting Our Nation’s Election Infrastructure in 2020.”