CISA launches new election threats webpage ahead of Election Day
With a week left before the Nov. 5 election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency launched a new election threats webpage to keep citizens and government officials informed of the current threat environment and how foreign actors are attempting to influence and interfere with the U.S. voting process.
It includes real-time election threat updates from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI, as well as a public service announcement series called “Just So You Know,” about the types of cyberattacks on election infrastructure the agency is seeing. These include denial-of-service attacks, ransomware and disinformation campaigns, including false claims of hacked voter information.
The new webpage is part of the security agency’s larger #Project2024 website, which launched in January. It provides cybersecurity resources, training lists and services to support more than 8,000 election jurisdictions for the 2024 election cycle.
The new webpage also includes joint statements from the security agencies on recent cybersecurity incidents involving election administration.
“The IC assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. Local election officials have already debunked the video’s content,” reads a statement about the elections office in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which last week saw a video circulating online falsely showing the destruction of voter ballots.
The statement went on to say CISA, ODNI and the FBI expect Russia to continue creating and releasing more deepfakes aimed at eroding public trust in the upcoming election and dividing Americans.
