CONTROL DE GESTIÓN

Noticia tomada de
Valeria Gómez Giraldo
CC. 1020834268
INGENIERÍA ELECTRÓNICA
The New York Times
UNIVERSIDAD EL BOSQUE
Octubre 28 de 2020
NOVIEMBRE 6 DE 2020

‘Perception Hacks’ and Other Potential Threats to the Election

In the final days of voting, election officials and cybersecurity experts are keeping a close
eye on a range of possible ways foreign governments and other hackers could interfere. In
Georgia, a database that verifies voter signatures was locked up by Russian hackers in a
ransomware attack that also dumped voters’ registration data online. In California and
Indiana, Russia’s most formidable state hackers, a unit linked to the Federal Security Service,
or F.S.B., bored into local networks and hit some election systems, though it is still unclear
why. In Louisiana, the National Guard was called in to stop cyberattacks aimed at small
government offices that employed tools previously seen only in attacks by North Korea. And
on Tuesday night, someone hacked the Trump campaign, defacing its website with a
threatening message in broken English warning that there would be more to come.

None of these attacks amounted to much. But from the sprawling war room at United
States Cyber Command to those monitoring the election at Facebook, Twitter, Google and
Microsoft, experts are watching closely for more “perception hacks.” Those are smaller
attacks that can be easily exaggerated into something bigger and potentially seized upon as
evidence that the whole voting process is “rigged,” as President Trump has claimed it will
be. The phrase comes up every time Christopher Krebs, the Department of Homeland
Security official responsible for making sure voting systems are secure, talks about the
biggest vulnerabilities in this election. His worry is not a vast attack but a series of smaller
ones, perhaps concentrated in swing states, whose effect is more psychological than real.
Perception hacks are just one of a range of issues occupying election officials and
cybersecurity experts in the final days of voting — and their concerns will not end on Election
Day.

American experts have warned local officials that come Nov. 3 the Iranians may seek to
paralyze or deface the websites of secretaries of state, affecting the reporting of results,
and create the impression of being inside the voting infrastructure even if they never were
and the election results have not been compromised.

Some of the potential threats and what has been learned so far in a year of behind-the-
scenes cyberbattles could be prevented by: Protecting the Machines, in which government
officials are trying to assure voters that voting machines are hard to hack on a large scale;
Backups, where the constant drumbeat of cyberattacks and foreign interference has forced
states to put safeguards in place; Ransomware, the most imminent threat, officials say, is
ransomware attacks that could freeze some part of the voting system and delay results;
Preparing for the Aftermath, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a
“public service announcement” recently about taking care to verify information before
believing it or reposting it.
 Opinion

I think it is very important to be aware of all cybersecurity issues that could happen at any
moment and that may affect in serious ways the National Security. The elections are a very
important moment in which all “Americans” are focused right now, and for that same reason,
it is the perfect opportunity for hackers to corrupt the system and harm National Security.

For this motive, I think white hat hackers are extremely important right now for USA’s
security and the correct performance of the elections without any kind of sabotage in them.
This is something an electronic engineer should care about, technology is our field and for
that reason, we should always keep an eye on this kinds of threats.