Facebook finds “sophisticated” efforts to sow division and disrupt 2018 elections

Microsoft discloses first known hacking attempts in midterm elections

Microsoft disclosed Thursday that it identified and helped thwart hacking attempts on three congressional candidates earlier this year, marking the first publicly known hacking efforts targeting candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.

“Earlier this year, we did discover that a fake Microsoft domain had been established as the landing page for phishing attacks,” Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president for security and trust, said at the Aspen Security Forum.

“And we saw metadata that suggested those phishing attacks were being directed at three candidates who are all standing for election in the midterm elections,” he added.


Burt said that Microsoft and the government were able to take the domain down and block the phishing messages.


The executive did not disclose the names of the candidates targeted but said they were “people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint.”

http://thehill.com/policy/technolog...-known-attempts-to-hack-the-midterm-elections

Russians tried to hack McCaskill’s 2018 campaign

The Daily Beast reported that the hackers targeted Senate staffers through phishing emails, falsely telling them that their Microsoft Exchange passwords had expired and sending them to a mock-up of the Senate’s Active Directory Federation Services login page.

Microsoft seized one of the fake sites in October and redirected traffic from the domain to its own server. This allowed the company to see who was sent to the mock site.

...

Tokyo-based cybersecurity group Trend Micro told The Hill earlier this year that it had identified websites designed to look like the U.S. Senate’s internal email system and that they were part of an email-harvesting operation.

The sites were reportedly created by the Russian hacking group known as “Fancy Bear,” which is linked to the 2016 DNC hack. The Daily Beast reported that the techniques used by the Fancy Bear hackers were similar to those used on McCaskill’s staff.

...

The Daily Beast noted that the attempted breach against McCaskill took place in August 2017, around the time Trump took a trip to Missouri, where he urged attendees at a rally to vote McCaskill out of office.

“We must lower our taxes and your senator, Claire McCaskill, she must do this for you, and if she doesn’t, you have to vote her out of office,” Trump said at the time.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecu...tried-to-hack-mccaskills-2018-campaign-report

Facebook Pulls Fake Accounts That Mimic Russian Tactics Ahead of Election

Facebook Inc. said it discovered a new group of accounts that engaged in coordinated political agitation and misinformation efforts ahead of November’s midterm elections, in an echo of Russian activities on the platform during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

The social-media giant on Tuesday said it removed 32 pages and accounts from its main service and Instagram photo-sharing app that were created between March 2017 and May of this year. The pages and accounts—which include such names as “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation” and “Resisters,” and largely targeted causes on the left—collectively created more than 9,500 posts and were followed by more than 290,000 other Facebook accounts. The accounts also promoted 30 real-world events.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebo...ssian-efforts-during-2016-election-1533055712

Facebook finds 'sophisticated' efforts to disrupt US politics, removes 32 accounts

Senator Warner:

“Today’s disclosure is further evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division and spread disinformation, and I am glad that Facebook is taking some steps to pinpoint and address this activity," Warner said in a statement to Fox News.

"I also expect Facebook, along with other platform companies, will continue to identify Russian troll activity and to work with Congress on updating our laws to better protect our democracy in the future,” he continued.

"It’s clear that whoever set up these accounts went to much greater lengths to obscure their true identities than the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) has in the past," Facebook said in its statement. "We believe this could be partly due to changes we’ve made over the last year to make this kind of abuse much harder."

Senator Burr:

"The goal of these operations is to sow discord, distrust, and division in an attempt to undermine public faith in our institutions and our political system," Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said in a statement. "The Russians want a weak America. There is still much that needs to be done to prevent and counter foreign interference on social media."



http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/07...-disrupt-us-politics-removes-32-accounts.html

Yeah why do we need a foreign nation sowing distrust in our institutions when we have one of the two major parties doing that job quite effectively already?

This is really dumb.

Seems a little late to announce that plan. And then there's this:

Still, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner and Voatz, the Boston company that developed the app, insist it is secure. Anyone using it must first register by taking a photo of their government-issued identification and a selfie-style video of their face, then upload them via the app. Voatz says its facial recognition software will ensure the photo and video show the same person. Once approved, voters can cast their ballot using the Voatz app.

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West Virginia will limit the use of Voatz largely to troops serving abroad. "There is nobody that deserves the right to vote any more than the guys that are out there, and the women that are out there, putting their lives on the line for us," Warner said.

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It just makes me uncomfortable to have our soldiers abroad uploading selfies to vote when we know a foreign adversary is trying to hack our elections with little resistance from the White House and Congress.

That seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

I understand the above concerns, but this is actually pretty cool if you take out the whole Russian hacking thing. Obviously, the procedure is fucked with the whole facial recognition thing and government-issued ID, but the underlying premise of increasing methods of voting to match 21st Century capabilities seems sound to me. If you can ensure the app is secure (two-step login?) and you are issued an ID # and login credentials when you register to vote, I think allowing mobile voting would drastically increase access to the polls and how many people actually vote on election days.

Definitely. I think mobile voting should be a goal, but we've got a lot of problems to take care of before we get there.

AsesinoDeTortugas said:

I understand the above concerns, but this is actually pretty cool if you take out the whole Russian hacking thing. Obviously, the procedure is fucked with the whole facial recognition thing and government-issued ID, but the underlying premise of increasing methods of voting to match 21st Century capabilities seems sound to me. If you can ensure the app is secure (two-step login?) and you are issued an ID # and login credentials when you register to vote, I think allowing mobile voting would drastically increase access to the polls and how many people actually vote on election days.

Click to expand...

If we weren’t facing unprecedented levels of cyberattacks against our existing election infrastructure...I would agree with you. Up until 2016 I always thought we needed to move to some form of digital voting in an effort to increase voter turnout.

After 2016...we need to move far away from any technology that could potentially be compromised. Count me in for paper ballots until we have an administration that actually wants to protect our elections and technology that can actually do it.

If we had an American POTUS, he might start sending out details of Putin's wealth to the Russian people. We might even take ten or twenty billion from him until he stops.

Newenglanddeac said:

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Will all voting be on Chinese ZTE phones?

no

A large percentage of Republicans think Russian interference to stop Democrats is justified. I’m more worried about bad actors from within. People who think Democrats aren’t real Americans would have no problem throwing away a few ballots here and there from minority neighborhoods to help the cause.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) on Wednesday said Russian hackers had successfully "penetrated" some of Florida's election systems ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

"They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about," Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times.

Nelson said leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee encouraged him fellow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) to notify Florida state election supervisors that "the Russians are in their records," according to the report.