National: How officials are protecting the election from ransomware hackers | Patrick Howell O’Neill/MIT Technology Review
Hackers played a significant role in the 2016 election, when the Russian government hacked into the Democratic campaign and ran an information operation that dominated national headlines. American law enforcement, intelligence services, and even Republican lawmakers have concluded, repeatedly, that Moscow sought to interfere with the election in favor of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, in the last four years, ransomware has exploded into a multibillion-dollar business. It’s a type of malware that hackers use to restrict access to data or machines until they’re paid ransoms that can run into the tens of millions of dollars. There’s now a global extortion industry built on the fact that the critical infrastructure and digital systems we rely on are deeply vulnerable. Put those two things together, and you get the nightmare scenario many election security officials are focused on: that ransomware could infect and disrupt election systems in some way, perhaps by targeting voter registration databases on the eve of Election Day. Steps to prevent such attacks are well under way.