Suspect websites found amid security concerns
Nearly a year after Russian government hackers meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, researchers at cybersecurity firm Trend Micro zeroed in on a new sign of trouble: a group of suspect websites.
The sites mimicked a portal used by U.S. senators and their staffs, with easy-to-miss discrepancies. Emails to Senate users urged them to reset their passwords — an apparent attempt to steal them.
Once again, hackers on the outside of the American political system were probing for a way in.
“Their attack methods continue to take advantage of human nature and when you get into an election cycle the targets are very public,” said Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president of cloud research at Trend Micro.
Now the U.S. has entered a new election cycle. And the attempt to infiltrate the Senate network, linked to hackers aligned with Russia and brought to public attention in July, is a reminder of the risks, and the difficulty of assessing them.
Newly reported attempts at infiltration and social media manipulation — which Moscow officially denies — point to Russia’s continued interest in meddling in U.S. politics. There is no clear evidence, experts said, of efforts by the Kremlin specifically designed to disrupt elections in November. But it wouldn’t take much to cause turmoil.
Online targeting of the U.S. political system has come on three fronts — efforts to get inside political campaigns and institutions and expose damaging information; probes of electoral systems, potentially to alter voter data and results; and fake ads and accounts on social media used to spread disinformation and fan divisions among Americans.
In recent weeks, Microsoft reported that it had disabled six Russian-launched websites masquerading as U.S. think tanks and Senate sites. Facebook and the security firm FireEye revealed influence campaigns, originating in Iran and Russia, that led the social network to remove 652 impostor accounts, some targeted at Americans. The office of Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said hackers tied to a “nation-state” had sent phishing emails to old campaign email accounts.
U.S. officials said they have not detected any attempts to corrupt election systems or leak information rivaling Kremlin hacking before President Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 victory.