Law enforcement officials, government workers and cyber-security professionals are preparing to swoop in, track and hopefully block anyone attempting a cyberattack aimed at destabilizing the U.S. presidential election. The possibility is slight, with risks lessened by the fractured, pre-digital nature of the national voting apparatus. Still, fears that hackers — perhaps from Russia — could instill doubts about the voting process via attacks on the Internet infrastructure have put the cyber-security community on guard. In a way, they are girding for war, but the fronts are multiple and decentralized. Although many are keeping low profiles, we know about some.
… Federal authorities say the decentralized and antiquated nature of the country’s vote tabulation systems would be difficult to penetrate. The worry, instead, is focused on other disruptions.
Two federal officials told USA TODAY there is concern systems unrelated to the country’s vote-tabulation system could be targeted to raise anxiety as voters go to the polls Tuesday.
The officials, who are not authorized to comment publicly, said breaches could take the form of what’s known as denial of service attacks, similar to last month’s rolling operation that knocked a number of popular websites offline for hours. There was no specific or credible information, however, that such operations are being planned to disrupt the election.
Full Article: Cyber ‘SWAT’ teams gird for Election Day trouble.