US afraid of attacks by foreign hackers and ransomware attacks during presidential election

Within a month, the US government plans to launch a program whose focus will be on protecting voters’ databases and voting systems from hackers during the presidential election in 2020.

At the same time, US authorities possess evidence that Russia attacked the systems responsible for checking citizens’ votes.

According to analysts, Russian hackers wanted to collect as much useful information as possible. Representatives of the special services are sure that same foreign intelligence forces will try to do the same with the 2020 elections. Moreover, CIA has reason to believe that foreign cybercriminals will also try to manipulate databases or destroy important information.

“We consider the possible compromise of voting systems as a high-risk situation. This is because these systems constitute one of the few constituent parts of the electoral process that is constantly connected to the Network”, – said US officials.

The Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as well as the US Department of Homeland Security are concerned about possible ransomware attacks that encrypt or destroy sensitive files.

“Recent incidents have shown that government systems can be an easy target for ransomware. That is why we are now working with partners to ensure database security and to respond to ransomware attacks”, – said Christopher Krebs, director of CISA, addressing public concerns.

Ransomware attack usually blocks an infected computer system until a payment is sent to the hacker, usually in the form of a cryptocurrency.

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According to current and former U.S. officials, efforts to counter cyber-attacks by ransomware targeted at the polls linked with the intelligence community’s directive to determine the most likely digital attack directions in the November 2020 elections.

“It is imperative that states and municipalities limit the availability of information about electoral systems or administrative processes and secure their websites and databases that could be exploited”, – the FBI said in a statement, supporting the Homeland Security initiative.