Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 4 sepTember 2018
As elections approach, what is the risk of Russian meddling?

By FRANK BAJAK and that voted overwhelmingly
ADAM GELLER for Trump, provided little
Nearly a year after Rus- detail in July when an at-
sian government hackers tempt by Russian hackers
meddled in the 2016 U.S. to infiltrate her campaign
election, researchers at cy- came to light.
bersecurity firm Trend Micro "While this attack was not
zeroed in on a new sign of successful, it is outrageous
trouble: a group of suspect that they think they can
websites. get away with this," Mc-
The sites mimicked a portal Caskill said.
for U.S. senators and their The failed hack, which in-
staffs. Emails to Senate us- cluded an attempt to steal
ers urged them to reset their the password of at least one
passwords — an apparent McCaskill staffer through a
attempt to steal them. fake Senate login website
The attempt to infiltrate the identified by Microsoft, is
Senate network and oth- the most notable instance
ers reported recently point of attempted campaign
to Russia's continued ef- meddling by Russia made
forts to interfere in U.S. poli- public this year. Microsoft
tics, which Moscow official executives said recently
denies. There is no clear that the company had de-
evidence, experts said, of This combination of 2017-2018 photos shows from left, a Facebook posting from a group named tected attempts by Russia's
Kremlin efforts specifically "Being Patriotic" attributed to Russian agents by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, Demo- GRU military intelligence
cratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri whose campaign was targeted by Russian hackers and
designed to disrupt elec- voting machines in Chicago after hackers found a way into the voter registration database at the agency to hack two sena-
tions in November. Illinois State Board of Elections in mid-2016. tors.
Still, "we fully realize that we Associated Press Since mid-2017, the group
are just one click away of behind that attempt has
the keyboard from a similar the White House cyberse- gence agents this July said least make a pass at all aggressively targeted po-
situation repeating itself," curity coordinator's post the hackers had stolen in- 50 states," said Christopher litical groups, universities,
Dan Coats, the director of confirmed his lack of inter- formation on 500,000 vot- Krebs, the undersecretary enforcement agencies
national intelligence, said est in countering Russian ers. for critical infrastructure at and others, according to
in July. meddling, critics say. Con- It is the most notable case the Department of Home- TrendMicro.
Michael McFaul, architect gress has not delivered any of foreign tampering with land Security. "Russian hackers appear to
of the Obama administra- legislation to combat elec- U.S. election systems made Before the 2016 general be broadening their target
tion's Russia policy, has said tion interference or disinfor- public. There has been election, Russian agents set, but I think tying it to the
he believes Russian Presi- mation. no evidence of efforts to sent spear-phishing emails midterm elections is pure
dent Vladimir Putin per- But there is time to take change voter information to 122 state and local elec- speculation at this point,"
ceives little benefit in major stock of interference that or tamper with voting ma- tions officials who were said Michael Connell, an
disruption now, preferring has come to light — and to chines, but experts cau- customers of election soft- analyst at the federally
to keep his powder dry for assess the risks of what we tion hackers might have ware vendor VR Systems. funded Center for Naval
the 2020 presidential con- don't know. planted unseen malware in At least 21 state systems Analyses in Arlington, Vir-
test. ____ systems that could be trig- were probed by the same ginia. Eric Rosenbach, as-
Experts said it is too late to In mid-2016, hackers got gered later. Russian unit, officials said. sistant secretary of defense
safeguard U.S. voting sys- into Illinois' voter registration "My unofficial opinion is But federal officials have for global security during
tems and campaigns this database. Special counsel that we're kind of fool- moved slowly to share intel- the Obama administra-
election cycle. Trump's re- Robert Mueller's indictment ing ourselves if we don't ligence. As of mid-August, tion and now at Harvard,
cent decision eliminating of a dozen Russian intelli- think that they tried to at 92 state election officials said Russian intrusion that
had been given clearanc- has come to light may be
es. only a tip to larger, hidden
Much of the machinery schemes. "There probably
used to collect and tabu- have already been com-
late votes is antiquated, promises of important cam-
built by a handful of un- paigns in places where it
regulated and secretive could sway the outcome or
vendors, the outdated soft- undermine trust in the elec-
ware highly vulnerable to tion," Rosenbach said. "We
attacks, researchers say. might not see that until the
"If someone was able to very last moment."
compromise even a hand- ___
ful of voting machines I By the time a group called
think that would be suffi- "ReSisters" began organiz-
cient to cause people to ing a rally against white
not trust the system," said nationalism, it had spent a
Sherri Ramsay, a former year sharing left-wing posts.
National Security Agency But in late July, Facebook
senior executive. shut down ReSisters' ac-
___ count and 31 others that
Democratic Sen. Claire researchers said echoed
McCaskill of Missouri, seek- Russian troll operations be-
ing re-election in a state fore the 2016 election.q