The Electoral Commission stated that the state’s information technology department’s coverage measures had “prevented the demonstration of an advertisement embedded in a public site available on a WEC computer. “When the State Department of Business Technology provided the IP protection it had blocked to DHS, the firm knew The Cope as “connected to Russian government cyberacters,” according to the statement.
Toni Gidwani, chief operating officer of the renowned cybersecurity company ThreatConnect, told TPM that this “malicious advertising” (malicious advertising) “is a fairly common attack vector. “Gidwani, who warned that ThreatConnect simply cannot independently determine DHS’s assertion that Russia is targeting Wisconsin without the real IP address, which Michels refused to disclose, said the tactic is used on sites of general interest where advertisers do not exercise broad control over their audience.
“If the online page were something really express to the election and/or anything that WEC staff went on to more than other goals, that would be remarkable,” he told TPM. “If the online page were something really general, then it could be difficult to argue that the activity was directed at the WEC. “
The first type of attack that Gidwani referred to is called a “water point,” a trap placed on a specific organization of users of an online page who appear to be more likely to visit; It is not transparent that the WEC worker who initiated the ad was targeted in this way, but it turns out that Russian cyber actors could possibly have participated in the broader virtual advertising ecosystem, with its self-enforcing regulations and good reputation. Documented vulnerability to malicious activity, in addition to your use of Facebook and Twitter ads.
It is not transparent what was intended to be achieved with the 2016 attack, however, the equipment designed for advertising fraud, generally used to inflate successful ad logs, the amount paid through an advertiser, has already been reused for Russian propaganda efforts. , someone used a network of robots designed for malicious advertising to redirect users to pro-Russian videos on Dailymotion.
Jonathan Albright, director of studies at the Two Center for Digital Journalism, which drew a map of online disinformation ecosystems as early as November 2016, told the TPM that many who disseminated this incorrect information contained malicious code.
“There were definitely suspicious resources (i. e. content and code) in the batch of propaganda/misinformation/deception sites I saw in November 2016,” Albright said. “If I don’t forget correctly, I think 3 of the 116 sites were preventative blocked through my browser while I was scraping advertising technology. Many redirects to strange IP addresses, unsafe external symbol/graphics uploads, etc.
Targeting a body like the Wisconsin Electoral Commission would be a delicate or complicated operation,” Albright said.
“It’s pretty imaginable to target a company, and based on what I’ve seen, it’s even more likely that a government workplace or individual workplace/department will be the goal,” he told TPM. “I think a targeted story or a current affair can be written to attract an express audience and then used as a vector to compromise individual computers and/or IP to cope with the ranges. “
Wisconsin blocks tens of thousands of attempts to play its Internet programs and more than a million attempts to hack passwords each year, said Michels, who insisted that the announcement on the WEC computer is a small attack in a sea of similar attempts and had been thwarted.
In any case, experts already suspected that Russian government operators had used malicious advertising elsewhere; NOW, DHS has shown that it also used it in the 2016 election.
Ivanka Trump attended a deposition Tuesday in washington attorney general’s investigation into currency irregularities in President Trump. . .
Rudy Giuliani’s reported discussion of a pardon by President Trump may force the White House to reveal a few more details. . .
Dr. Jeffrey Pothof moves on to the last page of his e-book on the pandemic. Yes, an e-book.