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Oct 22, 2019 · This review defines “election interference” as one country or group attempting to influence an election in another country. The people orchestrating election interference campaigns may be trying to influence results, or they may be simply trying to cast doubt on election processes themselves. It is important to distinguish between negative ...
This interference effort intends to sow division and undermine confidence in American democracy. This interference serves Russia’s interests and matches Russia’s interference playbook. Our methods can help identify online interference by foreign adversaries, allowing for proactive measures.
- 2MB
- William Marcellino, Christian Johnson, Marek N. Posard, Todd C. Helmus
- 32
- 2020
May 1, 2024 · Four years after the tumultuous 2020 election, election officials continue to report unacceptable levels of threats, harassment, and abuse, as well as concerns about safety and political interference. At the same time, they report significant progress in protecting against election threats, with large majorities implementing measures to ensure ...
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Ukrainian Presidential Election: May 25, 2014
- UK “Brexit” Referendum: June 23, 2016
- Us Presidential Election: November 8, 2016
- French Presidential Election: May 7, 2017
- German Federal Elections: September 24, 2017
- New Norms
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
Of all the political ideas to defend themselves before the court of human history, few have proven as potent and as compelling as that of electoral democracy. Through the twentieth century, democracy has faced off many times against fascism, communism, and other ideologies, and proven itself time and again to have the stronger case. The central ten...
The past five years have demonstrated at least one thing about election interference: though it keeps happening, nobody can agree on just what it is. The 2016 US elections served as a flashpoint in recognizing modern election interference, but there have been numerous instances of interference in other European elections that can provide valuable l...
Incident
In 2014, months after ousting President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukrainians headed to the polls to elect a new president. But days before the vote, the pro-Russian hacking group CyberBerkut destroyed key vote tallying system files and leaked private emails and administrator documentation from Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC). CEC restored the system from backups but faced another wave of attacks around the election, which delayed the release of results and nearly led to an incorrect anno...
Analysis
1. Vote Manipulation: Four days before the election, CEC programs to monitor voter turnout and tally votes were shut down for twenty hours by the deletion of key files.7Nolan Peterson, “How Russia’s Cyberattacks Have Affected Ukraine,” Daily Signal, December 16, 2016, https://www.dailysignal.com/2016/12/16/how-russias-cyberattacks-have-affected-ukraine/. Katya Gorchinskaya, Olga Rudenko, and William Schreiber, “Authorities:Hackers Foiled in Bid to Rig Ukraine Presidential Election Results,” K...
Response
Government: As the incidents occurred, Nikolay Koval, the head of Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team, reported that the malware used to collect the CEC’s emails and administrator data had been used previously by APT28.10Koval, “Revolution Hacking.” Media: Widely reported in Ukrainian media at the time, very limited global media attention and no coverage in OSCE election report. The insistence of Russian media outlets such as Russian Channel One on reporting the false winner and the si...
Incident
In the run-up to the 2016 Brexit Referendum, Russianlanguage bots executed an extensive social media campaign on social media platforms like Twitter, posting and amplifying pro-Brexit rhetoric.12David Kirkpatrick, “Signs of Russian Meddling in Brexit Referendum,” New York Times, November 15, 2017, https://www.nytimes. com/2017/11/15/world/europe/russia-brexit-twitter-facebook.html These Twitter accounts were later shown to be operated by the Russia-based IRA in an attempt to sway the referend...
Analysis
1. Infrastructure Exploitation: Russia targeted the UK energy network on the day of the referendum.15“UK cyber-defence chief accuses Russia of hack attacks,” BBC, November 15, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41997262.”In addition, in 2017, the UK Parliament’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) reported that the British referendum website where citizens registered to vote may have been hacked.16“Brexit referendum website might have been hacked: UK lawm...
Response
Government: The head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) National Cyber Security Centre has publicly stated that Russian hackers targeted the UK’s power supply on the day of the referendum.22“UK cyber-defence chief accuses Russia of hack attacks.” Conversely, there remains insufficient publicly available evidence to confirm whether the British referendum website was hacked and, if so, whether a nation-state was behind the operation.23“Brexit referendum website.” UK govern...
Incident
In the run-up to the 2016 US presidential elections, Russian agents engaged in a multipronged influence campaign intended to “undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate [Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton], and harm her electability and potential presidency.”27Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, January 6, 2017, https://www...
Analysis
1. Infrastructure Exploitation: Russian hacker groups APT29 (Cozy Bear) and APT28 (Fancy Bear) penetrated the DNC’s networks, apparently separately.29Alperovitch, “Bears in the Midst.” APT28 also gained access to the DCCC’s networks.30Eric Lichtblau, “Computer Systems Used by Clinton Campaign Are Said to Be Hacked, Apparently by Russians,” New York Times, July 29,2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/us/politics/clinton-campaign-hacked-russians.html?mabReward=A6 1. In addition, Russian act...
Response
Government: Prior to the election, US security firms, like Crowdstrike, were able to attribute the DNC hack to Russia. 37Alperovitch, “Bears in the Midst.” US government and intelligence agencies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), followed this with an October 2016 joint statement assessing with high confidence that the Russian government-directed GRU was behind the...
Incident
On May 5, two days before the French presidential election, nine gigabytes of data from Emmanuel Macron’s campaign, including documents and emails, was posted online on a document sharing website called Pastebin, and was further disseminated on 4Chan. The data was reportedly obtained by with spear-phishing methods and there are conflicting reports as to whether the documents contained fake information or not.42April Glasser, “Macron’s French presidential campaign has been hacked less than 48...
Analysis
1. Infrastructure Exploitation: Actors gained access to documents and emails of the Macron campaign through a spear-phishing operation. 2. Strategic Publication: Documents obtained through the spear-phishing operation were released during the no-campaigning period immediately before the French presidential election, making it difficult for the Macron campaign to counter information released during the leak. 3. Sentiment Amplification: Use of bots to amplify the messaging and rhetoric around t...
Response
Government: Initially, the hack was attributed to Russian actors and APT28 by various sources, including US CYBERCOM Commander Mike Rogers and two other US cybersecurity firms.44Andy Greenberg, “The NSA Confirms it: Russia Hacked French Election ‘Infrastructure,’” WIRED, May 9, 2017, https://www.wired. com/2017/05/nsa-director-confirms-russia-hacked-french-election-infrastructure/; Alex Hern, “Macron hackers linked to Russian-affiliated group behind US attack,” The Guardian, May 8, 2017, http...
Incident
In 2015, data was stolen (primarily emails) from multiple German political sources, including the Bundestag (the lower house of parliament) and the state offices of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union of Germany (the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands, or CDU) party during a prolonged weekslong cyberattack.49Scott Neuman, “Russia’s ‘Fancy Bear’ Reportedly Hacks German Government Network,” NPR, March 1, 2018, https://www.npr.org/sections/ thetwo-way/2018/03/01/589787...
Analysis
1. Infrastructure Exploitation: In 2015, a group of hackers—likely APT28—gained administrator access to the Bundestag network and copied sixteen gigabytes of emails from lawmakers and their staff, although these were never released.52Patrick Beauth, Kai Biermann, Martin Klingst, and Holger Stark, “Merkel and the Fancy Bear,” Die Zeit, May 12, 2017, https://www.zeit.de/digital/2017-05/cyberattack-bundestag-angela-merkel-fancy-bear-hacker-russia/komplettansicht 1. Sentiment Amplification: Germa...
Response
Government: German officials blamed APT28 (Fancy Bear) for the 2015 hack of the Bundestag and other cyberattacks aimed at Chancellor Angela Merkel.55Neuman, “Russia’s ‘Fancy Bear’ Reportedly Hacks German Government Network .” In May of 2016, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV), stated that Russia was behind the 2015 hack of Bundestag and Merkel’s CDU.56“Russia ‘was behind German parliam...
As with any new weapon set or domain, establishing norms of state behavior has been the focus of diplomats and military strategists. Cyberspace and the actions taken within it have been particularly challenging to define, let alone develop a semblance of standards and acceptable actions. Early on, the issue of attribution—or rather, the difficulty ...
While policymakers and national security officials formulate responses to election interference, Russian state-directed efforts have continued—particularly against US targets. In August 2018, Microsoft announced that its Digital Crimes Unit had found evidence of APT28’s planning efforts to engage in Infrastructure Manipulation against several conse...
Governments, security researchers, and others privy to the evolving tactics and evidence of Interference Actions taken by states and non-state actors should continue to expose these actions. Exposu...Journalists, analysts, and other parties responsible for characterizing Interference Actions and influence operations should take all reasonable efforts to accurately describe the particular action...The United States, along with other nation-states that traditionally value freedom of speech, expression, and a critical media environment, should be wary of classifying influence operations and Se...Jul 4, 2020 · Voter registration records, used on election day to determine who is permitted to vote, are maintained in computerized databases. Ballot forms are created and edited on computers. Absentee ballot mailings are managed by computer. Preliminary and official election results are maintained and disseminated by computer.
Jan 16, 2024 · ML: Election science, in the context of our work, refers to the application of quantitative and statistical tools to evaluate election administration, operations and outcomes. Our goal is to be able to accurately capture all the relevant information in an electoral ecosystem, so we collect everything from registration and voting records ...
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Apr 29, 2024 · Our newest report — “ The Shapeshifting Threat of Election Interference ” examines how election interference legislation has changed over the past three years. We look closely at what these changes could mean for the 2024 election – particularly in Georgia and North Carolina, two states that experts consider among those most likely to ...
