Security News
A declassified joint report from several United States agencies assesses that Russian and Iranian threat actors did attempt to meddle in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, but claims that the technical integrity of the voting process wasn't affected. The joint report is meant to provide information on the extent to which foreign actors attempted interference with the 2020 U.S. elections, along with details on whether these adversaries targeted political organizations, campaigns, or election candidates, and an assessment on whether the attacks were able to successfully compromise the targeted infrastructure.
The USA's Office of National Intelligence today released its previously classified assessment of "Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections" and found "Some successful compromises of state and local government networks prior to Election Day-as well as a higher volume of unsuccessful attempts". It's described as the intelligence community's collective assessment of attempts to disrupt the 2020 election and to contain "Analytic judgments identical to those in the classified version" but without "Full supporting information" or information on "Specific intelligence reports, sources , or methods."
Election systems in the U.S. are vulnerable to cyber intrusions similar to the one that hit federal agencies and numerous businesses last year and remain a potential target for foreign hacking, according to a report released Wednesday. The report by the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit that partners with the federal government on election security initiatives, focuses on how hardware and software components can provide potential entryways for hackers.
The Nomination Committee of Securitas proposes the election of Jan Svensson as the new Chair of the Board of Directors at the Annual General Meeting on 5 May 2021. The Committee also proposes the election of Gunilla Fransson, Harry Klagsbrun and Johan Menckel as new members of the Board.
Electronic voting machine maker Smartmatic has sued Fox News, three of its hosts, and two of Donald Trump's loyalists - Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell - for an eye-popping $2.7bn in defamation damages over the false claims it stole the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden. The voting tech biz, in its court filing, said Fox News broadcast entirely bogus claims that Smartmatic's devices were engineered to secretly swing vote counts in Biden's favor in US states where the results were close.
Last week I signed on to two joint letters about the security of the 2020 election. At a minimum, all states should employ election security practices and mechanisms recommended by experts to increase assurance in election outcomes, such as post-election risk-limiting audits.
President Donald Trump tonight fired the boss of the US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the very organisation his administration formed with the aim of shoring up America's computer networks from hackers. The Trump 2020 campaign and the Tweeter-in-Chief both challenge that assessment of election security, and allege widespread voter fraud, but have yet to offer any hard evidence of wrongdoing.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election. Trump fired Christopher Krebs in a tweet, saying his recent statement defending the security of the election was "Highly inaccurate."
More than 1,500 fraudulent votes were cast in the early hours of Monday in the country's annual bird election, briefly pushing the Little-Spotted Kiwi to the top of the leaderboard, organizers and environmental organization Forest & Bird announced Tuesday. Those votes - which were discovered by the election's official scrutineers - have since been removed.
Despite ongoing unsubstantiated claims of fraud from the outgoing Trump administration, senior election officials charged with securing the 2020 vote on Thursday said they had done so successfully. "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," said the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council Executive Committees in a joint statement, along with the US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other organizations.