How Simple Claims of Election Interference Can be Enough to Prompt Real-World Threats – By Edward Graham (Nextgov) / Sept 9, 2022
Federal officials remain on guard against foreign meddling in U.S. elections, as CISA and other agencies work to strengthen partnerships and intelligence sharing efforts with state and local election administrators.
The threat of foreign interference in U.S. elections remains a top concern, an election official from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Thursday, with nation state actors potentially weaponizing misinformation to further stoke distrust in the voting process.
Kim Wyman, senior election security advisor for CISA, said during a panel discussion on election security at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit that previous U.S. elections have included a combination of foreign influence campaigns and cyber attacks “from domestic and foreign actors trying to get into our systems.” But she said that these ongoing interference efforts could also be weaponized to amplify threats of physical violence against election officials and conspiracies about the accuracy of the electoral process.
“These can be inflated claims of being able to breach a system or getting data,” Wyman said. “They can also be actual successful attempts. And it all sort of feeds into itself, because you have the narrative and the influence campaign, you have the actual cyber activity, and now I think what we’re starting to see is potentially physical security issues that come around that.”
