Voter beware: US tells public how to avoid election mischief

Team Udayavani, Oct 7, 2020, 10:49 AM IST

Washington: The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency have issued a series of advisories in recent weeks aimed at warning voters about problems that could surface in the election — as well as steps Americans can take to counter the foreign interference threat.

The issues identified in the public service announcements run the gamut from the spread of online disinformation about the electoral process to cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure.

Taken together, the advisories make clear that American agencies are tracking a broad range of potential threats that they believe voters should know about — not just for transparency’s sake but also so that voters can be prepared.

The warnings come even though U.S. officials as recently as Tuesday expressed confidence in the integrity of the vote despite repeated efforts by President Donald Trump to denigrate it.

Some of the announcements from the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency: DISINFORMATION THROUGH BOGUS INTERNET DOMAINS AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS It’s not hard to set up a fake, or spoofed, email account or website to closely resemble a legitimate one.

That’s precisely what the FBI and CISA are warning may take place to trick Americans during the election. Cyber criminals routinely forge websites with slight misspellings or other barely perceptively alterations to dupe internet users.

In the context of an election, for instance, a bogus website ending in “.com” versus “.gov” that purports to have legitimate voting information or results could trick people who visit the page into thinking that what they”re reading is an authentic, trustworthy government source.

Besides spreading false information, officials say, such spoofed websites and email accounts can gather personally identifiable information and spread malicious software.

One precaution voters can take is to verify the spelling of websites and email addresses that may look legitimate but are actually not.