Federal officials warn of ‘low-level’ cyberattacks to deny access to election info
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Cyberattackers may overwhelm election-related websites with traffic to block access to information such as unofficial vote counts happening on election night, according to the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The federal officials’ early warning called attention to the prospect of Distributed Denial of Service attacks on election infrastructure and election-adjacent websites that the officials say will not disrupt the vote.
“These low-level attacks, which are expected to continue as we approach the 2024 U.S. general election, could disrupt the availability of some election-related functions, like voter look-up tools or unofficial election night reporting, during the election cycle but will not impact voting itself,” the FBI and CISA said in an announcement. “Threat actors may falsely claim that DDoS attacks are indicative of a compromise related to the elections process as they seek to undermine confidence in U.S. elections.”
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