The U.S. officials charged with protecting election security say they’re watching for threats from multiple groups and countries. And in recent months, social media companies and cybersecurity researchers have identified Chinese influence operations aimed at the elections. -Politico

The 14 include battleground states Arizona, Iowa, and Pennsylvania, as well as Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Washington, and West Virginia, Politico reported.

Brig. Gen. Gent Welsh, the commander of the Washington Air National Guard, said at a virtual media briefing on Nov. 4 that not every state is doing it, but states that are activating these units “have invested in cyber talent and cyber missions for years,” according to outlet Statescoop, which reports on technology-related news in government.

“If you don’t have a cyber unit in your state, you’re not in a good position to help them protect elections,” Welsh said. - Epoch Times

Lies and conspiracy theories about the security of election systems are what most worry election supervisors and federal cybersecurity and intelligence officials, because those falsehoods can inflame mistrust that discourages people from voting and provoke anger that spurs people to threaten violence against election administrators. -Politico

Hackers have one relatively low-tech tool for knocking campaigns off balance and disrupting voters’ access to reliable election information: forcing websites to crash using automated tools that simulate massive floods of people visiting those sites.

Hackers could take over candidates’ or campaigns’ social media accounts on Election Day and make inflammatory comments designed to alienate voters or spread false information about how or when to vote. These impersonation schemes could fuel distrust of the election process and knock campaigns off balance in the home stretch of the contest.

States have spent years upgrading the security of their voter registration databases, which form the bedrock of a well-functioning election system. But no technology is perfectly secure, and vulnerabilities likely remain in some states’ networks. Russian hackers breached Illinois’ voter database in 2016, and Iranian hackers penetrated a state database in 2020.

This relatively novel threat represents an evolution in how foreign governments use hacking campaigns to meddle in U.S. elections. After stealing voter records from a state election database in 2020, Iranian operatives threatened those voters with unspecified consequences if they didn’t vote to reelect then-President Donald Trump. The messages, which contained false allegations of vulnerabilities in election technology, were designed to look like they came from the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group.

At least seven states and Washington, D.C., use wireless modems to transmit unofficial election-night results to their central offices. These modems use telecommunications networks that are vulnerable to hackers, and malicious actors could exploit them to tamper with unofficial vote data, corrupt voting machines or compromise the computers used to tally official results.

“We now have to worry about anybody getting access to a communication network that is fundamentally open,” Matt Blaze, a Georgetown University computer science and law professor who studies voting systems, told POLITICO last month.

These attacks are much more difficult and time-consuming — and thus much less likely to occur — than spreading falsehoods on social media or temporarily taking down websites. And states that use paper ballots and post-election audits would likely catch and correct erroneous results.

Even so, temporarily incorrect information could fuel doubts about results, especially if the hackers bragged about their accomplishments. And if subsequent audits that correct digital tampering dramatically change vote tallies, bad-faith actors might seize on those changes to falsely allege fraud.