WASHINGTON — Heading toward Election Day in the U.S., hackers may target your inbox instead of the ballot box.
It’s difficult to alter overall ballot counts in the U.S., which doesn’t have a centralized voting system, but hackers could take advantage of the Nov. 8 election to dupe people and gain access to their personal information, according to Oren Falkowitz, chief executive officer of Redwood City, Calif.-based Area 1 Security.
“People should expect that the theme of the election will be used as a lure — whether it’s to influence the election or not,” Falkowitz, a former National Security Agency analyst and director of technology and data science programs at U.S. Cyber Command, said in an interview this week.
With U.S. voters getting deluged with campaign and election-related e-mails, many may have their guard down when it comes to clicking on a link or attachment that deploys malware or gets users to enter their login credentials.
In terms of the actual vote, hackers could create confusion or meddle with turnout with false information about changes to precinct locations. They could also target political campaigns or media organizations with polling claims. Still, the “vast majority being victimized are private citizens,” he said.
“You might see as an example, something like, ‘Click here to get a free bus ride to the polling station,’ or ‘Hey, go to this precinct, or ‘hey, don’t go to this precinct,”’ he said.
The threat of cyber breaches in this election cycle was heightened following the release of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee on the eve of Hillary Clinton’s formal nomination as the party’s presidential candidate. On Oct. 7, U.S. intelligence officials said publicly for the first time that intelligence agencies are “confident that the Russian government directed” the hacking and subsequent disclosures “to interfere with the U.S. election process.” Russia has rejected the accusations.
“There will be a lot of phishing around election themes,” Falkowitz said.