2024 US Elections Threat Landscape

Tomorrow marks the culmination of one of the more contentious and polarizing political environments in recent memory. Fastly predicts that groups associated with nation-states, hacktivists, and cybercriminals may increasingly target businesses and their sites tomorrow and in the days following the election results. They may employ phishing, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and data theft. These actions aim to disrupt operations, cause financial losses, and exploit heightened public interest surrounding the election. In particular, disinformation efforts and targeting critical infrastructure sectors are particular areas of concern.

Disinformation 

Disinformation has been on the rise, particularly around political topics and figures. Aimed at deliberately spreading false information to deceive or influence people, a tense political landscape is ripe for disinformation efforts. Now, the growing presence of generative AI makes it easier than ever to manufacture false images, videos, and narratives. In fact, AI-generated videos (deepfakes) are so good that it’s often nearly impossible to spot a fake. 

We often think of disinformation efforts being particularly successful with an older demographic (hello, ageism!), but with increasingly sophisticated efforts, everyone can be an easy target.

In the leadup to Election Day, we’ve seen disinformation efforts emerge:

• CISA reported on Oct 25th, 2024 that Russian hackers had released a video falsely depicting someone ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania. Similar efforts are no doubt underway

• Opinion pieces and posts (we won’t name them) make continual bold claims of voter fraud and ulterior motives from the opposing candidate. It can be impossible to reverse the false perspective of these narratives 

• The National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) recent Memorandum notes that “foreign actors could use AI-generated materials to amplify doubts about the election’s fair conduct”

• In swing states like Pennsylvania, different voting standards could cause distrust: for example, PA will not count mail-in ballots until AFTER the polls close, inviting room for speculation and false narratives

• Potential for candidates to declare early victory: these declarations of victory are often difficult to refute for a populace that aligns with the declaring candidate

Cyber attacks

Risks of more traditional cyber attacks also remain very real; organizations with physical infrastructure pose viable targets. Critical infrastructure sectors such as defense, energy, and healthcare are likely particularly at risk due to the sensitive nature of their data and the potential impact on national security, public safety, and public health. Additionally, risks to financial organizations, either before or after the election, remain a point of particular concern. Considering the large amounts of sensitive data and transactions they handle, they are often targeted by criminals seeking to steal money or disrupt economic activity. This type of malicious activity could be used to make a statement or to sow unrest. 

The NIC has noted the probability that “foreign actors also have the capacity to stoke protests, take violent actions, and conduct cyberattacks”, all toward the goal of causing disruption for a nation already very divided.

DDoS Threats and Mitigation

Given the increased profile of the presidential election, we can expect to see DDoS on a larger scale in 2024. However, as CISA and the FBI stated in a July 31 alert, these attacks will not prevent voters from casting their ballots.

At Fastly, we have seen a lot of interest from media and entertainment (M&E) folks who know this year has the potential to cause extra security challenges. Between the traffic flooding their sites as the votes are tallied, to the attacks that will likely ensue Tuesday through and the days/weeks thereafter, many are seeking to further reduce their risk of performance impacts or downtime to ensure they can make the most of this historic moment. Fastly DDoS Protection is our recommended solution because it deploys rapidly and immediately protects any application from disruptive and distributed attacks. Leveraging our network’s massive bandwidth and adaptive techniques, we automatically keep M&E customers and beyond performant and available without any required configuration. Best of all, it offers zero attack fees, so if the attacks flood in, your operational costs won’t balloon too.

Cybersecurity & the U.S. Presidential Election

So what can everyone, and you, do? If you’re in a position to provide opinions or statements of ‘fact’, ensure you use proper de-bunking efforts and your due diligence to scrutinize, well, everything you hear around the elections. And as an informed voter, view information through the lens of disinformation; you are just as viable a target as anyone else. If your business is under attack or concerned about the level of protection needed to protect your assets, reach out to our team of security experts.