Microsoft reveals first known midterm campaign hacking attempts
Source: Politico
By ERIC GELLER 07/19/2018 01:33 PM EDT
Microsoft detected and helped block hacking attempts against three congressional candidates this year, a company executive said Thursday, marking the first known example of cyber interference in the midterm elections.
Earlier this year, we did discover that a fake Microsoft domain had been established as the landing page for phishing attacks, said Tom Burt, Microsofts vice president for security and trust, at the Aspen Security Forum. And we saw metadata that suggested those phishing attacks were being directed at three candidates who are all standing for election in the midterm elections.
Burt declined to name the targets but said they were people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint.
Microsoft took down the fake domain and worked with the federal government to block the phishing messages. Burt said that none of the targeted campaign staffers were infected. Burt declined to name the targets but said they were people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/19/midterm-campaign-hacking-microsoft-733256
leftieNanner
(15,083 posts)will now be the responsibility of companies like Microsoft and the States who are interested in running a free and fair election.
Sick that the Repukes in Congress won't lift a finger. I know. I know. They like it that way.
erronis
(15,241 posts)Of course fighting cyber-anything is complicated and expensive. Being on defensive is much harder than attacking.
States usually don't have the resources to be able to deal with much extra IT work. That's why the per-state model is probably flawed.
Paper ballots r step in the right direction.
leftieNanner
(15,083 posts)All vote by mail. Paper should be required for federal elections (actually, I think for ALL elections, but Kobach will do Kansas).
annabanana
(52,791 posts)sandensea
(21,624 posts)The same with e-mails from "Natasha" and "Anastasia" thanking you for "blowing their mind" last night.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Where was all this when I was younger and spending Friday nights alone playing my mandola? I think it best I delete them.
sandensea
(21,624 posts)ret5hd
(20,491 posts)was the palms of his hands.
sandensea
(21,624 posts)You can't make anyone else happy, if you can't give yourself a little too.
dembotoz
(16,799 posts)Freethinker65
(10,012 posts)ailsagirl
(22,896 posts)elmac
(4,642 posts)to keep Russia from shutting the site down again.
erronis
(15,241 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,339 posts)New (or sleeper) accounts, trolling, bringing extremism into minor disagreements, all sorts of shit-stirring.
elmac
(4,642 posts)and shut down. There will be disagreements but any anti Dem or progressive posts should be wiped with the loss of post privileges.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)same people responsible for hacking the election enough for a Trump win.
That's what I thought election night. No one believed me, though. I wasn't certain...but I was highly suspicious, because the election results didn't make sense, according to the polls. And the biggest Dem site going down on election evening? I thought it unlikely that was a coincidence.
I then checked a couple of Repub sites. They weren't having any technical issues. Yeah...it was suspicious.
elmac
(4,642 posts)and I would bet big money, by putin. Keep the site silent so the fascists could get away with stealing the election.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)or nt being able to vote, etc.
I mentioned all this on election night in another forum. People thought I was wacky & a sore loser. But that wasn't it at all. I had been following things closely, and I've been following politics for decades. And we knew some things about Russia. I just wondered out loud...could it be????
I turned on tv and expected to see others wondering the same thing. But what I saw was people everywhere, disregarding Russia and taking things at face value.
I am NOT prone to conspiracy theories. I REALLY thought something was up. I can't have been the only one who thought that! (Forums did not allow discussion of that.
elmac
(4,642 posts)this was an act of war and tRump is inviting Hitler to the white house.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)Marcuse
(7,479 posts)2naSalit
(86,569 posts)Bengus81
(6,931 posts)Real low level,easy to detect and shut them down. Then they can claim their being hacked too by Dems. Watch for it..........
Maxheader
(4,373 posts)incorruptible?
safeinOhio
(32,674 posts)fake web site. They got me twice. Looks official , message about a purchase made in NY using my account. After the third question I got a feeling they wouldn't ask for my password and SS number. Sent a screen shot of it to Apple and they said they will look into it and it wasn't them. A month later I got another one.
MichMan
(11,912 posts)We all get phishing emails regularly in our inboxes. Most of us are intelligent enough to delete them
Still can't believe someone as smart as John Podesta fell for one and allowed so much of Hillary's campaign documents to be given away like that to hackers. I get that he asked some IT guy if they were legit, but IMO they both should have known better