Security News > 2020 > January > Why the 2020 US presidential election is still vulnerable to foreign interference

Not only are the US elections arguably some of the most influential on the global stage, but the infamous cyber attack on Clinton campaign manager John Podesta during the 2016 presidential elections was a watershed moment.

The threat of foreign interference takes many forms, from the more subtle use of fake news and online trolls to confuse and frustrate the political discourse, to direct attacks on vulnerable voting infrastructure and to disrupt or breach political parties and individuals.

Four years on from the Podesta hack, email remains one of the most prominent weapons in the cyber attacker's arsenal - and worryingly, the majority of political parties and candidates are still extremely vulnerable to email attacks.

A direct attack along the lines of the 2016 email hack is perhaps the most obvious and overtly damaging outcome of cyber activity by foreign nation states.

Alarmingly, despite the powerful example set in the 2016 presidential elections, we have found that the level of email security is still woefully inadequate for all but a few of the 2020 campaign frontrunners.

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