Cyber attacks that knock the websites of election offices and campaigns temporarily offline are expected to continue as votes roll in, but none of the efforts have threatened the integrity of the vote, a senior official at the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Tuesday.
(Bloomberg) — Cyber attacks that knock the websites of election offices and campaigns temporarily offline are expected to continue as votes roll in, but none of the efforts have threatened the integrity of the vote, a senior official at the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Tuesday.
A handful of offices, including the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website, were targeted with Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS attacks, on election day. There was no evidence of a coordinated campaign nor a specific threat to core voting systems, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
The activity seen so far shouldn’t cause anyone to question the integrity of the election, the official said. Even successful denial of service attacks don’t affect the ability to cast a ballot or have it counted.
The agency’s major concern continued to be disinformation and misinformation surrounding technical glitches and the fact that some results may take days to be certified.
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