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(CNN)Leading up to Election Day, there are renewed intelligence concerns of a possible terrorist attack planned by al Qaeda.
To put it in context, however, the times around elections and democratic transitions have always raised security concerns as terrorist groups attempt to disrupt the act of voting or sway the results of an election. The real threat next Tuesday, however, has nothing to do with bombs or guns. It has to do with wires. Voting has, in the vernacular of terror, become the new soft target.
As we all wait for election results, the notion that the very process of voting could be vulnerable to hacks, pranksters or a concerted effort by another country like Russia is not idle speculation. It is a deep crisis for the United States, and one that isn’t getting enough attention: A foreign nation could undermine the independence of voting.
Several states already have admitted to potential hacking infiltration, and most states, in response, are seeking advice from the Department of Homeland Security on how better to protect their networks. This is a homeland security issue of the most existential kind.
Second, the way that victors are determined on election night — and how networks like CNN access the data from unverified returns to call the results — leads to one place: the Associated Press.
The AP collects election data from precincts and regional centers and has become a one-stop-shopping repository. It also means it can present a “single point of failure” — a hack into the system to manipulate the voting numbers will mean that networks will be basing their results on bad data.
Only until the more official numbers are relayed — much later on — by states through their secretary of states’ offices would any alterations be detected, and that will be long after a victor is declared. The AP has not been very public about its plans to deter such efforts, mostly to ensure it doesn’t disclose to the enemy what cybersecurity efforts it has in place.
It is too late to have a systemic fix in place by Tuesday. Increased awareness, investments in state and local networks and minimizing the risks of data manipulation will provide a temporary Band-Aid.
At the least, the concerns today — and the aggression by Russia against one particular party, from the disclosure of emails to hacks of the Democratic Party — should be a warning for the future: The act of democracy itself is under threat. We must invest, seriously and with common purpose, to harden the most symbolic of soft targets.
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The post What’s the biggest threat on Election Day? appeared first on MavWrek Marketing by Jason
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