© 2024 CoolTechZone - Latest tech news,
product reviews, and analyses.

CISA and FBI: ‘DDoS attacks won’t impact the US elections’


Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on the election infrastructure, or adjacent infrastructure that support election operations, will not impact the security or integrity of the 2024 United States presidential election process.

That’s what the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and FBI say in a joint public service announcement.

DDoS attacks could possibly disrupt some election-related functions, like the reporting of the election results, but not the voting itself. The security agencies point out that threat actors have claimed that these “low-level attacks” compromised the election process in the past, but evidence of that has yet to be found.

The purpose of DDoS attacks during election time is to undermine confidence in the election process. Furthermore, DDoS attacks have been a popular tactic used by hacktivists and cybercriminals seeking to advance a social, political or ideological cause.

By flooding servers with connection requests, they either slow down or become inaccessible. This is a temporary inconvenience to prevent eligible voters from accessing online information and resources.

In addition to official lines of communication, there are alternative channels across the United States to disperse information to voters, including traditional news outlets and direct messaging to voters. In addition, election officials have multiple safeguards, backup processes and incident response plans in place to limit the impact of and recover from DDoS attacks with minimal disruption to election operations.

If DDoS attacks however do occur during the U.S. presidential election, which is scheduled for November 2024, there’s little to worry about.

“In the event that foreign actors or cyber criminals conduct DDoS attacks against election infrastructure or other infrastructure supporting election administration, the underlying data and internal systems would remain uncompromised, and anyone eligible to vote would still be able to cast a ballot,” CISA and the FBI point out.

The agencies promise to closely coordinate with federal, state and local election partners to protect the election process. CISA helps critical infrastructure owners and operators from physical threats and cyber threats. The FBI is responsible for all election-related crimes and malicious cyber activities during the election.

“With election day less than hundred days away, it is important to help put into context some of the incidents the American public may see during the election cycle that, while potentially causing some minor disruptions, will not fundamentally impact the security or integrity of the democratic process. DDoS attacks are one example of a tactic that we have seen used against election infrastructure in the past and will likely see again in the future, but they will NOT affect the security or integrity of the actual election,” CISA Senior Advisor Cait Conley says in a statement.

She stresses that an informed public is key to neutralizing the impact of foreign influence operations and disinformation.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked