Microsoft: Three Hacking Attempts Made on Midterm Elections
Microsoft detected data indicating three congressional candidates were being hit with cyberattacks – the first to target midterm elections.
The first hacking attempts have been made on the 2018 midterm elections, reports Microsoft, which detected phishing attacks against three congressional candidates and helped block them.
Microsoft’s Tom Burt, vice president for security and trust, discussed the attacks at this year’s Aspen Security Forum. Earlier this year, experts found a fake Microsoft domain had been registered as a landing page for phishing campaigns against candidates. He did not name the candidates and confirmed the attacks did not succeed against any of them.
“They were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint,” Burt explained in a panel discussion on election security, as reported by NBC News.
Security researchers, at Microsoft and across the industry, agree the cyber activity preceding this year’s midterm elections is not the same level of activity detected ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Attackers are not targeting academia or think tanks, Burt said.
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