If you’ve been paying attention to the election news cycle, you’ve probably noticed an increase in the number of reports related to foreign threats to U.S. elections. It seems like it’s been a major news story since the 2016 presidential election. But what might be news to you is the elevation of cyber risk to your own organization during election season.
The reality is that anytime we have elections on the horizon, there’s an increased volume of cyberattacks in general. Election seasons always see greater activity by bad actors. This year’s presidential election will be no exception.
Related: Why Russia Could Launch a Cyberattack Against Your Company
Foreign Cyberattacks During U.S. Elections
There’s a whole plethora of people and organizations who are materially affected by election-cycle cyber concerns. And when it’s a presidential election, the golden egg for certain nation-sponsored groups is to manipulate the outcome of the election.
Prime targets are party headquarters, party outposts, and public figures who are known to be affiliated with one party or another. Even voting machines are vulnerable to getting breached. No political party, and no political candidate, is immune from these kinds of cyberattacks.
If they can breach a party’s field offices and find a list of known voters for that particular party, an attacker can now target those specific voters on social media and swamp them with messaging that’s designed to influence their vote.
And if they can’t manipulate the outcome of the election results, the next best thing is to create disruption and sow chaos. We saw plenty of evidence of that during the 2016 presidential election.
And because the presidential election cycle is so long, these attackers have plenty of time to be effective. For example, while the news media is just now picking up news stories about election season cybersecurity concerns, certain nation states have been systematically and actively launching various attacks for well over a year.
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) has a compliance certification specifically for voting, called Elections Infrastructure Security Certification (EISC), which was developed in response to the issues related to the elections infrastructure. (This happens to be one of the 150-plus certifications available on TCT Portal, and we have clients currently leveraging it.)
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Is Your Business Vulnerable to an Election-related Attack?
While government offices, campaign offices, and election systems are the primary targets, their vendors also provide fruitful opportunities to cyberattackers. Electronic election systems are hosted somewhere. There’s a whole supply chain to the election, and every company within it is at risk.
But it isn’t just election industry companies who could be breached during election cycles. As attackers are looking for their prime targets, they’re also taking a randomized approach to finding opportunities.
Because the volume of overall attacks is higher, every organization is more susceptible to being breached. Everyone has a heightened risk of getting caught in the broad net that’s been cast. These bad actors don’t discriminate when they go trolling for vulnerable organizations.
In other words, these threat actors could find your company while looking for an election organization. Your business isn’t the target, but it just happens to get caught in their net.
Even if they aren’t after you, election attackers will still profit off of you — literally. Because they have to fund themselves, your data is an opportunity to make money on the dark web. And before you even realize you’ve been breached, your company’s sensitive data has already been sold to the highest bidder.
So election cycle attacks are highly relevant to your business, whether you’re a global enterprise or a mom-and-pop shop. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are. And since this season is seeing an increase in cyberattacks, it’s more critical than ever to be vigilant and to use best practices to protect your organization from data breaches.
But We’re Too Small to Be of Interest to Bad Actors…Aren’t We?
Think you don’t have anything of value to cyberattackers? Think again. Your company is storing all kinds of sensitive information that bad actors can profit from. For example:
- Customers’ credit card data
- Personally identifiable information of employees, vendors, clients
- Your own banking information and accounting info
- Legal documents
- Intellectual property
- Medical data
- Payroll information
And even if you didn’t have any of that information, a ransomware attack can lock you out of your own system and shut down your operations. If you want to regain access to your own systems, you’ll need to recover systems, rebuild systems or pay a hefty ransom.
The inescapable reality is that you’re a target to foreign attackers during the presidential election season. If you have a device that’s connected to the internet, you’re susceptible to attack. Your company isn’t safe. There is no such thing as security by obscurity. It’s not a matter of if you will be attacked, but when.
Related: Your Small Business Isn’t Hiding from Cyberattackers
It’s Time to Step Up Your Cyber Protection
If you haven’t been taking cybersecurity seriously before now, this is a great time to get started.
I often hear objections from organizations. They can’t invest in cybersecurity, because it will cost too much. Or, they believe that the implementation of security measures will hinder business operations.
But it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to go from doing nothing to doing something. And you can implement a solution that protects your business without getting in the way of operating your business — it’s very doable.
If nothing else, start simply. Go from nothing to something. You don’t have to do everything all at once, but you should at least get started with what you can do. Understand where you’re at and take the next step forward towards greater protection.
At the end of the day, the companies that take their security seriously are the ones that survive.
If you’re relying on cyber liability insurance to protect you, keep this in mind: insurance doesn’t prevent things from happening. It only assists the organization with funds to help clean up the disaster you’re dealing with in the aftermath of a cyber attack. Insurance can’t protect your car from an accident or save your life in a house fire, and it certainly can’t be guaranteed to save your business after a data breach.
Protect Your Data with Confidence
Total Compliance Tracking was founded to make compliance management suck less. You can have the cybersecurity protection your company needs not only during election cycles, but proactive protection every day. TCT Portal compliance management software makes it easy to manage compliance engagements with confidence and competence. Eliminate chaos and streamline your compliance processes back to sanity.
We also provide consulting services that help you understand your security/compliance needs, your current situation, and the most effective path to get you to the next level. We’ve seen it all and we can help you navigate uncharted waters with ease.
No matter what your security and compliance situation is right now, take your next step forward to protect your business, your customers, and your employees from vicious foreign cyberattacks during this election season.
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