A vast majority of election-related websites operated by local governments in battleground states lack a key feature that would help distinguish them from those run by commercial entities or criminal hackers — a site that ends in .gov as opposed to .com or other extensions, according to cybersecurity research firm McAfee.
Of 1,117 counties in 13 key states, which account for 201 of the 270 Electoral College votes that determine the winner of presidential contests, 83.3% didn’t have the .gov validation, McAfee found.
When government websites operate using .com or other domain extensions, it becomes easy for foreign adversaries to put up fake sites that imitate government websites and to mount disinformation campaigns aimed at misleading voters, said Steve Grobman, McAfee’s chief technology officer.
... If we look at the battleground states, the local election websites are still not operating with the level of security we’d expect,” Grobman told CQ Roll Call. “We see the vast majority are not using .gov, meaning that normal citizens may not be able to identify if an election website is real or not. And only half of them use encryption, so information they’re transmitting is not secure.
read more (governing)
Of 1,117 counties in 13 key states, which account for 201 of the 270 Electoral College votes that determine the winner of presidential contests, 83.3% didn’t have the .gov validation, McAfee found.
When government websites operate using .com or other domain extensions, it becomes easy for foreign adversaries to put up fake sites that imitate government websites and to mount disinformation campaigns aimed at misleading voters, said Steve Grobman, McAfee’s chief technology officer.
... If we look at the battleground states, the local election websites are still not operating with the level of security we’d expect,” Grobman told CQ Roll Call. “We see the vast majority are not using .gov, meaning that normal citizens may not be able to identify if an election website is real or not. And only half of them use encryption, so information they’re transmitting is not secure.
read more (governing)
