Russian efforts to meddle in America’s 2018 midterm elections are currently underway.
And some of our highest ranking officials, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
have said the US isn’t doing enough to combat foreign interference in the midterms.
POMPEO: We will not tolerate Russian interference in our 2018 elections.
Much work has been done, there’s more to do.
Rest assured that we will take the appropriate counter measures in response
to the continued Russian efforts.
And he’s right.
In this episode, we’re going to dive into the various ways Russian actors are attempting to interfere in the midterm elections,
discuss what the U.S. government is doing about it, and how it affects you.
Yes, you, scrolling around on this feed,
possibly seeing ads or fake pages that want you to click.
Not us, though, we’re cool.
The interference is happening across at least 3 fronts:
spear phishing campaigns, social media misinformation, and attacks on the physical voting system itself.
We’ll explain a little bit about all three.
First: phishing attacks.
Imagine you get an email, open it.
The message appears to be from your bank requesting that you click through to change your password.
You don’t really think twice, click the link to reset it ...but, uh oh,
you just unwittingly gave your valuable information away.
A bad actor has now made off with your banking credentials.
This is called a “Spear Phishing.”
And this type of hacking is being used to interfere with American politics right now.
Now, let’s have some perspective.
American institutions are no stranger to falling victim to foreign government hacking efforts.
Chinese government hackers stole the plans to our most advanced weapon systems;
Iran has hacked into banks, oil companies and even a dam in upstate New York;
North Korea hacked Sony Pictures and released thousands of emails
after the release of Seth Rogen’s movie about assassinating Kim Jong Un.
Remember that?
[Singing Katy Perry]
And of course, the DNC and John Podesta’s emails became victims in 2016
after Podesta - Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman - fell for a “spear phishing attack”
by clicking on a misleading email, allowing hackers to steal over 50,000 emails.
In August of 2018 during the run up to the midterm elections,
leaders at Microsoft said Russian hackers had registered a number of fake Microsoft websites this year,
aimed at targeting American think tanks and political campaigns.
The websites would have allowed the hackers to send fraudulent emails to people with a domain that looked normal.
Microsoft said the fake sites were aimed at spear phishing at least 3 candidates for the 2018 midterms.
While two of the candidates are so far unknown, one of them has been reported on.
And it is pretty revealing for what’s to come.
Because the known victim is a Democrat in a tight Senate race.
McCaskill: I’ve never heard the President of the United States say a bad word about Russia.
Claire McCaskill, an incumbent Missouri Democrat gearing up for re-election,
became the target of a cyberattack,
making her the first known targeted Democratic lawmaker in the Kremlin’s attempt to interfere in 2018.
Aside from criticizing Putin and his policies frequently,
her case is especially interesting as she is tied with her Republican opponent in the latest polls.
She’s a key candidate for Democrats to at least retain their current number of seats in the Senate,
and a key candidate if Democrats have any hope of retaking a majority in the Senate.
Fortunately for McCaskill, the hacking attempt was unsuccessful.
The alleged group behind these cyberattacks is an organization directed by Russia’s military intelligence known as ‘Fancy Bear’.
They’re reportedly the same group that went after Clinton staffers in the 2016 election.
The group’s intention is to weaken those who are critical of Russia’s government by obtaining evidence that is damaging
or perhaps embarrassing to the politician in question -
thus poking holes in their brand or integrity,
making their attempts to criticize Russia less effective.
McCaskill even doubled down after the unsuccessful hack attempt, calling Putin a “thug and a bully.”
But ‘Fancy Bear’ may fancy themselves as nonpartisan:
they have gone after conservative think tanks in the same way,
through another phony Microsoft website that Microsoft was able to shut down.
Although these think tanks are Republican, or conservative,
they have criticized Putin and pushed for greater sanctions on Moscow.
Which puts them in the crosshairs of Kremlin-backed hackers.
The second front where Russian Hackers are working the 2018 midterms is social media misinformation.
We saw this play out in 2016, and this year is no different.
We know Russian actors are deploying misinformation campaigns across social media
to divide Americans by amplifying controversial issues and propaganda via paid ads and bots.
Here’s one example from Twitter: Russian-linked bots amplified a hashtag called “#WalkAway”.
The hashtag was created to make it look like former Democrats have had enough with the party and are now walking away from it.
The goal here is to divide the party — and inspire the electorate to leave the blue side and vote red.
Republicans, and their operatives, were definitely promoting the hashtag on their own,
but they were then amplified by Russian bots to make the hashtag seem more popular than it actually was.
Twitter isn’t the only social platform where 2018 midterm sentiments are being manipulated by Russian actors.
In late July, Facebook announced they removed 32 pages and accounts “involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
Some of the page names: "Black Elevation," "Mindful Being," and "Resisters."
The removal also included some accounts on Instagram.
In late August, they announced that another batch of pages and fake accounts were removed.
But there are reports that Russian operatives are rerouting the misinformation through other accounts
that have yet to be removed, creating what the Daily Beast describes as a cat and mouse game
for the world’s largest social media platform.
And finally, the 3rd and perhaps most alarming front, Russian hackers have come straight for the voting systems themselves.
Florida Democratic Senator, Bill Nelson, who is up for reelection in a state that Trump won in 2016,
said Russians have “penetrated” state voter registration systems.
This means hackers could remove people from voter rolls, making it harder for them to vote.
With midterms right around the corner, it’s interesting to note which party is feeling confident.
Senate Republicans blocked an effort backed by Democrats to increase funds on election security measures.
The proposed measure would’ve given $250 million in grants to states to combat foreign government’s meddling in America’s elections.
Out of the 50 Senators in favor and 47 opposed, only one Republican voted yes in a proposition that needed 60 votes to pass.
The only Republican to vote for it was Bob Corker, a man who isn’t seeking reelection.
Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence said of hacking, “It is real. It is continuing.” Mike Pompeo agrees.
POMPEO: The threat of our adversaries trying to muck with our elections is very real. The Russians clearly did it in the 2016 election.
Meanwhile, our president very publicly accepted Putin’s denial that Russia interfered with the 2016 election cycle
during their now infamous meeting in Helsinki.
He then did some backtracking about those remarks once he returned states side.
TRUMP: And a key sentence in my remarks
I said the word "would” instead of "wouldn't".
But one indication of president Trump's stance on this continued Russian hacking problem
is his recent vetoing of the Secure Elections Act which was a bipartisan bill that would set new standards for election cybersecurity
and require audits after federal elections.
So, knowing all of this,
What the hell is an American voter supposed to do?
Here’s the good news: there are a few ways to fight this!
First and most obvious would be to take a very hard look at every email you receive.
If something seems even slightly off do not click through.
When it comes to social media misinformation, the most important thing you can do to sidestep fake news is to do your research.
Investigate if the information in the meme or article you’re sharing is accurate.
Do a quick google search and see what you come up with.
See if any reputable media companies covered this topic.
And lastly, in order to fight election day hacking, it’s important to speak to your local representatives.
There are currently two bills in Congress: the Secure Elections Act and the PAPER act.
Both of these bills would combat election hacking by replacing outdated voting systems and including a separate paper voting strip,
that would record each and every vote.
It would also require polling places to conduct a post-election audit,
which would then compare the paper vote to the votes on the electronic voting systems.
Unfortunately neither of the bills currently has a hearing or a vote scheduled.
By contacting your representatives to urge congress to hear these,
we can try to take these threats a little more seriously.
You can go to house.gov right now to find your rep’s contact info.
Hey YouTube! If you liked this video and want to see more like it,
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And if you see any questionable memes, or fake news links on social media,
then let us know in the comments.
We’ll be sure to follow up- thank you for watching.