Charles CooperConsulting Editor
The RSA Conference 2021 Virtual Experience is happening May 17-20 and Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, will be providing a summary of some of the leading stories from the conference to help you stay informed.
In 2020, the worst-case scenarios involving outside interference in the U.S. presidential elections failed to materialize. But state and federal authorities say it wasn’t for wont of trying.
Two reasons:
This time around the U.S. was prepared, thanks to unprecedented cooperation between government and the private sector. Secondly, adversaries chose to focus on spreading misinformation and disinformation. But in a post-mortem offered at the RSA Conference 2021, election and security officials said this remains an ongoing struggle in the shadows against hostile nation-states who are smart about picking their battles. “We didn't see our adversaries go after the ballot box, but we saw them try to influence our minds…aimed towards de-stabilizing society,” said Cynthia Kaiser, a section chief with the FBI.
Kaiser said that Russia and Iran, which she identified as the main threat actors in the last election cycle, concentrated on creating content or amplifying messages found on social media. Post-election, she said the agency had found evidence they were trying to intimidate election officials and exacerbate tensions after Joe Biden’s election victory. “We're not done. We have to continue what we're doing and get better at what we're doing,” Kaiser said, adding that she remained concerned about future elections “where adversaries believe they can conduct activities with impunity because there are no consequences or risks attached to their behavior.“I think it's essentially about getting some of these adversaries to change their cost-benefit analysis, whether they should be doing these activities in the first place and get them to the point where they’re saying, ‘It's just not worth it ..
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