Name: Analysis | The Cybersecurity 202: Conspiracy theories are all that’s left in Trump’s effort to overturn the election
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Analysis | The Cybersecurity 202: Conspiracy theories are all that’s left in Trump’s effort to overturn the election

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This article was published more than&nbsp;2 years agoCommentGift Sharewith Tonya RileyThe Trump campaign’s latest effort to overturn the election results pits the allure of conspiracy theories against years of efforts to create the most secure and auditable election in U.S. history.&nbsp;Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell presented no evidence for their claims during a lengthy news conference that the election was rigged by faulty voting machines, foreign powers and an opaque cast of corrupt politicians.&nbsp;Officials who ran the election and are preparing to certify it, meanwhile, have spent years improving security protections, testing technology and ensuring there are paper records of votes that can be audited after an election to prove they were tallied correctly.&nbsp;Indeed, the same day President Trump’s lawyers lobbed their baseless accusations, Georgia completed a hand count audit of its votes that and upheld Joe Biden’s narrow win in that state.AdvertisementBut the Trump argument now is based in paranoia and gut feeling rather than evidence and logic.&nbsp;“It’s very easy to assert nefarious connections and to cast doubt,” Edward Perez, global director of technology development at OSET Institute, a nonprofit election technology organization, told me. “We’d like to believe that official statements from all national election officials and from agencies including DHS about the integrity of the election and the absence of deleted votes or compromised machines should make a difference. It should be enough, but clearly it’s not.”&nbsp;Although the lawyers’ claims are outlandish, experts fear they could do real damage.&nbsp;Chris Krebs, who until this week was the federal government’s top election security official, called the news conference “the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history” on Twitter.&nbsp;That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky.— Tom Rorow (@C_C_Krebs)Trump earlier this week fired Krebs, who led the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, &nbsp;for vouching for the integrity of the election and for running a that knocked back false claims of election fraud.&nbsp;AdvertisementCarrie Cordero, general counsel at the Center for a New American Security think tank, warned the lawyers were introducing “chaos and instability” into the transition process.&nbsp;1. Joe Biden won the election.2. Trump &amp; his lawyers &amp; supporters are making a desperate but sincere go at overturning it.3. They will fail.4. By their attempt alone they are introducing next level chaos &amp; instability to the transition period that endangers national security.— Carrie Cordero (@carriecordero)The claims echo Trump’s long history of embracing conspiracy theories.&nbsp;For example, among the favors the president requested of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to his impeachment in 2019 was to concerning the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.&nbsp;The spurious claim, which was widely spread on right-wing media and conspiracy sites, posits&nbsp;that CrowdStrike, which investigated the Democratic National Committee breach, was actually colluding with the DNC to fake the breach — and that a server with evidence of this crime is in Ukraine.&nbsp;The president also repeatedly erroneously claimed that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.&nbsp;AdvertisementTo be clear, neither claim has any basis in reality.&nbsp;The lawyers’ claims about election fraud were convoluted and nearly impossible to follow.&nbsp;Many of them had been , such as a central claim that companies that supplied election equipment are connected to the regime in Venezuela and its deceased former president Hugo Chávez.Some were .&nbsp;Giuliani falsely suggested Biden had directed a “national conspiracy” to alter ballot-counting in multiple states, relying on officials in “big cities controlled by Democrats … that have a long history of corruption,” .&nbsp;“It comes right directly from the Democrat Party, and it comes from the candidate,” he said.&nbsp;Notably, Trump’s legal team has never alleged such widespread fraud in any of its court cases and has in the narrower claims it has made.&nbsp;AdvertisementAt one point, Powell bizarrely argued that “we have got to have an American company that uses paper ballots that we can all verify so every one of us can see that our vote is our vote.”&nbsp;In fact, the states where Trump is contesting Biden’s victory all use for all voters — a significant improvement since 2016 when Georgia and Pennsylvania lacked paper records for many or all voters. &nbsp;&nbsp;Here’s more from David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research:This is 100% true. And in fact, every single ballot cast in FL, GA, NC, VA, NH, PA, OH, MI, WI, MN, AZ, NV, CO (etc., etc.) was cast on paper (with the only exceptions being a small number of ballots cast by voters with disabilities on accessible devices). — David Becker (@beckerdavidj)The company at issue, Dominion, was founded in Canada, but is effectively based out of Denver now. And the nationality of the company should have nothing to do with the trustworthiness of ballots that are marked and verified by voters themselves. Dominion is devoting the to a refutation of all the conspiracy theories that Trump and his allies have lobbed at the company.&nbsp;AdvertisementAt another point, Giuliani suggested paper ballots can’t be trusted because election officials may have replaced legitimate absentee ballots with phony ones at some point in the process — a conspiracy that would require the cooperation of thousands of poll workers at locations across the country, for which there's no public evidence.&nbsp;Biden campaign spokesman Michael Gwin called the news conference a “Rudy Giuliani spectacle” that “exposes, as his appearances always do, the absurdity of Donald Trump’s thoroughly discredited claims of voter fraud.”&nbsp;The claims come after years in which the Trump administration and Republicans have blocked Democrats’ efforts to make elections more secure and transparent.&nbsp;Democrats sought about $3 billion for elections and mandates that states use paper ballots and conduct post-election audits. What they got, after bargaining with Republicans, was about $1 billion total and no mandates.&nbsp;AdvertisementThey also pushed for more transparency from election technology companies, including Dominion, but got no help from Republicans or the Trump administration.&nbsp;At one point during the news conference, Giuliani touted a in which Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sought information about the ownership of Dominion and other voting machine companies, pointing to it as evidence of nefarious activity.&nbsp;That letter, in fact, had nothing to do with Giuliani’s wild claims about Venezuelan influence on the companies.&nbsp;The thrust of the lawmakers’ concerns was that the three largest U.S. voting machine manufacturers — Election Systems &amp; Software, Dominion and Hart InterCivic — are all at least partially owned by private equity firms that may be focusing on profitability over security. They were pushing for more transparency to determine whether that is true.&nbsp;AdvertisementAlthough there’s probably no way to put an end to conspiracy theories, such increased transparency could make it easier to combat them.&nbsp;“I don’t want to give any oxygen to these conspiracy theories,” Perez said. “But if we made it more difficult for these companies’ ownership to be as opaque as they are today, that would make it harder to make some of these baseless claims.”&nbsp;Trump’s firing of CISA officials will make protecting a covid-19 vaccine harder, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) warns.“”covid-19Advertisement“”Questions loom about the security clearance of CISA's incoming assistant director.&nbsp;.The United Kingdom launched an offensive hacking unit to take on threats, including China and Russia.&nbsp;A Facebook vulnerability could have allowed attackers to access audio from Facebook Messenger calls on Android devices.&nbsp;The vulnerability, spotted by Google Project Zero's Natalie Silvanovich, has been patched, . “What you would see is the attacker calling you and then the phone ringing and they could listen until you pick up or the call times out,” said Dan Gurfinkel, Facebook's security engineering manager. “We quickly patched this before it was exploited.”&nbsp;The vulnerability would have been difficult to execute since it required both the hacker and the victim to be simultaneously logged into Facebook on both an Android device and a web browser and to be Facebook friends. &nbsp;More cybersecurity news:Krebs has a new title.Context from Colbert: — John Hultquist (@JohnHultquist)A man of facts until the end:Fact Check: Accurate — Tom Rorow (@C_C_Krebs)It has been a long week. Enjoy something cute:A tiny owl was found in the branches of the 2020 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. — CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday)CommentsGift ArticleTOP STORIESThe BriefingDon’t miss reporting and analysis from the Hill and the White House.Try a different topic or to save your preferences

This article was published more than&nbsp;2 years agoCommentGift Sharewith Tonya RileyThe Trump campaign’s latest effort to overturn the election results pits the allure of conspiracy theories against years of efforts to create the most secure and auditable election in U.S. history.&nbsp;Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell presented no evidence for their claims during a lengthy news conference that the election was rigged by faulty voting machines, foreign powers and an opaque cast of corrupt politicians.&nbsp;Officials who ran the election and are preparing to...

Analysis | The Cybersecurity 202: Conspiracy theories are all that’s left in Trump’s effort to overturn the election

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