Experts discuss worst-case scenarios for election night, from coordinated social media disinfo campaigns to ransomware targeting voter registration systems
and what to do about it. #GeorgetownLaw's @mattblaze: “this year my nightmares are less about technical mischief and more about logistical breakdown.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nbcpolitics : With foreign governments eyeing ways to disrupt the November election, smaller counties have brought on cybersecurity experts from the National Guard to help protect areas that are most vulnerable to hackers, federal authorities say. https://www.nbcnews.com/... @adrjeffries : Have you ever gotten to a polling place and found out that some number of machines are “broken”? Ever wonder what's actually happening there? https://themarkup.org/... @aspeninstitute : Election officials should focus on what they can control, says @AspenPolicyHub's @BetsOnTech, going on to say keeping electronic voting machines off the internet to minimize threats of hacking is one of them. Read more in @nytopinion: https://www.nytimes.com/... Jeff Giesea / @jeffgiesea : These “nightmare election day scenarios” beg the question: Why are we allowing election results to drag on? It seems like a big mistake, COVID notwithstanding. The downside risks are significant. It's likely to engender LESS not more confidence in results. https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : I appreciate the @nytimes giving @noUpside and I a chance to contribute our own “nightmare scenario”, although I think it's a much more likely outcome than that phrase implies. Yesterday, the @2020Partnership went operational to help stop this, but there is a lot more to do. https://twitter.com/... @msftsecintel : Between Sep 2019 and Jun 2020, STRONTIUM launched credential harvesting attacks against tens of thousands of accounts at >200 organizations. Learn about the group's shifting approach to credential harvesting, and get guidance for proactive defense: https://www.microsoft.com/... Clint Watts / @selectedwisdom : So Russia is all in on election 2020, hacking, social media...and the U.S. is defending this time. https://www.wsj.com/... Evan McMullin / @evanmcmullin : It's happening again. Russian government hackers attacking Trump's opposition during an election, something Trump will do nothing to stop because he welcomes the help. We cannot allow our leaders to be owned by foreign powers. https://www.reuters.com/... Yamiche Alcindor / @yamiche : A must read: Russian, Chinese and Iranian hackers have all tried to hack people and organizations involved in the 2020 U.S. election, according to Microsoft. https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ... Kyle Griffin / @kylegriffin1 : Contradicting Trump: The Russian military intelligence unit that attacked the DNC in 2016 is back with new hacks aimed at campaign staff, consultants and think tanks associated with Democrats and Republicans. Beijing is mostly targeting Biden officials. https://www.nytimes.com/... Evan McMullin / @evanmcmullin : NYT: Contrary to claims by Trump's DNI Ratcliffe that China prefers Biden to win the election, Microsoft found that Chinese hackers have been attacking the private email accounts of Biden's staff and only one Chinese target was affiliated with Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/... Max Kutner / @maxkutner : A day after a DHS whistleblower said the Trump admin had told him to downplay Russian threat and play up supposed anti-Trump Chinese threat, Microsoft says Russia is attacking both Dems and Republicans and that China is mostly targeting Biden, not Trump https://www.nytimes.com/... @fireeye : Today @Microsoft revealed that Russian military intelligence is continuing to attack Democrat and Republican campaigns. See what @JohnHultquist said about the cyber espionage groups and their threats to the U.S. democratic process. via @NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/... Kyle Griffin / @kylegriffin1 : Important pushback on the Trump admin: Microsoft found that Chinese hackers have been attacking the private email accounts of Biden's campaign staff, along with a range of other prominent individuals in academia and the national security establishment. https://www.nytimes.com/... Andy Greenberg / @a_greenberg : They're back: Microsoft found Fancy Bear, the same Russian GRU hackers who carried out the hack-and-leak operations against the DNC and Clinton campaign in 2016, have been targeting political campaigns, parties and consultants ahead of November. https://www.wired.com/... Dennis / @dennisf : “We have seen clear proof that enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) across both business and personal email accounts successfully thwarts the majority of credential harvesting attacks.” https://www.microsoft.com/... Ellen Nakashima / @nakashimae : Russian hackers who disrupted 2016 election targeting political parties again. Efforts by Iran to breach the RNC and Trump campaign failed. China attempt to penetrate Biden campaign also fizzled, Microsoft says. Lots of activity out there...w/@jdawsey1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Spencer Hsu / @hsu_spencer : NEW Russian hackers who disrupted 2016 election targeting political parties again, while China and Iran tried to hack the presidential campaign, Microsoft says China and Iran's respective efforts against the Biden and Trump campaign were not successful. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Eric Geller / @ericgeller : Breaking: Microsoft announces new election-related attacks by Russian, Chinese, & Iranian hackers. 🇷🇺 targeted party orgs, consultants, & think tanks 🇨🇳 targeted the Biden campaign and a “prominent” former Trump aide 🇮🇷 targeted Trump admin & campaign https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
This expert exercise lands two years after reporting that voter-registration networks penetrated in prior cycles remained largely unchanged, despite officials' warnings — the unfixed registration infrastructure is precisely the ransomware target the panel flags. It also extends the severe-vulnerability findings ahead of the 2018 midterms into a 2020 frame, where the threat mix has shifted from pure technical intrusion toward logistics and perception.
The near-term stakes are set by recent [[a:958180|election-day attack simulations showing officials struggling to counter online misinformation]], and by Microsoft-attributed Russian, Chinese, and Iranian targeting of campaigns and party organizations — including failed Iranian breaches of the RNC and Trump campaign.
First-order effects
- Smaller counties — the most vulnerable nodes — are already bringing on National Guard cybersecurity experts to defend voter-registration systems against foreign disruption attempts.
- Election officials' planning focus shifts from machine tampering to two cheaper attacks: coordinated social media disinformation and ransomware against registration databases, with Matt Blaze noting his nightmares center on logistical breakdown rather than technical mischief.
Second-order effects
- Defensive doctrine hardens around offline operation and multi-factor authentication: the Aspen Institute's keep-machines-offline guidance and Microsoft's finding that MFA thwarts most credential-harvesting become de facto standards for county election offices.
- Because small attacks can be amplified into confidence collapses, officials' monitoring expands toward "perception hacks" — minor incidents whose exaggerated framing does the real damage, forcing communications response to be planned as rigorously as technical defense.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, election administration becomes a permanent national-security function: decentralized county systems sustained by federal-adjacent support (National Guard detachments, DHS coordination) rather than one-time pre-election hardening.
- The battleground settles where the 2018 reporting pointed — infrastructure that was never rebuilt — making resilience and rapid, credible public communication, not perimeter defense, the metric of election integrity.
The trend: US election security is moving from episodic pre-election patching toward a standing defensive posture built around offline systems, MFA, and countering perception attacks.