DDoS Attacks: FBI, CISA Warn that Access to Election Information Could Be Hindered

A member of the hacking group Red Hacker Alliance, who refused to give his real name, uses a website that monitors global cyberattacks on his computer at the group's office in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China, on Aug. 4, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Federal agencies issued an alert of a possible cyberattack targeting the November elections, warning that a specific hacking technique could prevent access to critical election information.

The alert was issued on Wednesday by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for potential distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against election infrastructure. In such attacks, internet servers are flooded with enough requests to slow down servers to such a point that they become inaccessible or crash. This prevents regular users from accessing the servers and online resources.

In the context of elections, a DDoS attack could end up preventing voters from accessing websites detailing how to vote or register to vote.

The agencies said that DDoS attacks “could disrupt the availability of some election-related functions, like voter look-up tools or unofficial election night reporting.” However, they also said that it would not affect the “integrity of election processes.”

In the event of an attack against election infrastructure, “the underlying data and internal systems would remain uncompromised, and anyone eligible to vote would still be able to cast a ballot,” they said.

“With Election Day less than 100 days away, it is important to help put into context some of the incidents the American public may see during the election cycle,” said CISA senior adviser Cait Conley.

Despite the agencies’ claim that there have been no cases of Americans losing their votes from DDoS attacks, it is possible that disruption from such an attack could affect voting, according to a post by the Center for Internet Security. A well-timed attack targeting the voter registration process could prevent certain people from accessing critical websites, resulting in those people missing out on registration deadlines, the center noted.

The federal agencies said that hackers in the past “have falsely claimed DDoS attacks have compromised the integrity of voting systems to mislead the public that their attack would prevent a voter from casting a ballot or change votes already cast.”

“The FBI and CISA have no reporting to suggest a DDoS attack has ever prevented an eligible voter from casting a ballot, compromised the integrity of any ballots cast, or disrupted the ability to tabulate votes or transmit election results in a timely manner,” their alert stated.

They advised people to contact their state or local election officials if the websites of their regional election offices are unavailable. In case of any confusion regarding election information, details should be sought out from official sources such as state officials, the alert said.

Election offices have set up backup communication channels to disseminate information to voters in case threat actors do succeed in disrupting primary channels such as official websites.

Foreign Influence on Elections

The FBI–CISA alert follows concerns that rival nations such as China and Russia are seeking to influence U.S. elections through online operations.

An April 2024 report from Microsoft said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acquired or repurposed several X accounts to seek “perspectives on U.S. political topics.”

“These accounts nearly exclusively post about U.S. domestic issues—ranging from American drug use, immigration policies, and racial tensions—but will occasionally comment on topics of interest to China—such as the Fukushima wastewater dumping or Chinese dissidents,” the reported stated.

Some accounts post about political candidates and seek opinions from people, which the report suggests could be a CCP tactic to gain insight into Americans’ views on their country’s politics.

“More such accounts could be operating to increase intelligence gathering around key voting demographics within the United States,” the report said.

Meanwhile, a June report suggested that the Russia-linked CopyCop influence network was using artificial intelligence to spread propaganda related to U.S. elections.

The network was found to be plagiarizing content from news sources, modifying them, and disseminating the modified articles to U.S. election-themed websites through more than 1,000 fake journalist accounts.

“AI-generated influence content allows influence actors like CopyCop to rapidly launder emerging narratives targeting the 2024 US elections and obscure their origin, making it harder to attribute influence operations to foreign adversaries,” the report said.