Twitter hack highlights concerns about disinformation, election security
Cybersecurity experts say the massive Twitter hack that targeted prominent billionaires, politicians and other high profile users— including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama — should be a wake-up call ahead of the November election.
Hacked accounts posted about what appeared to be a cryptocurrency scam, but cybersecurity experts say a future attack could be politically motivated with serious ramifications.
“If you time it right, those sorts of things can have a big effect,” said James Lewis, director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What would be the effect if you had some sort of damaging tweet on Election Day, right? Are we prepared to deal with that? And the answer is probably not.”
Lisa Kaplan, founder of Aletha Group, was the digital director of Sen. Angus King’s (I-ME) 2018 reelection campaign and developed the campaign’s strategy for fighting disinformation.
“My hope is that organizations are starting to ask themselves, ‘What would we do if and when this happens to us?’,” said Kaplan in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
While experts are hopeful this latest hack will motivate campaigns to further prepare, they note this isn’t a new threat.
“We've seen so many wake-up calls. Hopefully it'll be a wake-up call for the campaigns cause they are targets and they know they’re targets,” said Lewis. “Whatever their strategy is now, they need to take a step back and ask how they make it stronger.”
Kaplan and Lewis told Yahoo Finance Wednesday night’s Twitter hack reminded them of the 2013 hack on the Associated Press that briefly moved financial markets.
“It is a huge risk,” said Kaplan. “Campaigns need to take a very proactive approach to this — and everybody needs to have a plan for what they're going to do if and when it happens to them.”
Prepare for ‘every possible risk’
Mick Baccio, a security analyst at Splunk who used to run cybersecurity for former Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, said there is only so much campaigns can do if the social media companies themselves are targeted — but campaigns need to be prepared.
“Generally when you see something in large scale like that, you look at, ‘Hey, this is not us. This is Twitter,’ and that's when all of your tabletops come into play,” said Baccio in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “If X happens, what do you do? Just every possible risk or scenario that you can think of, you kind of game plan.”
Baccio said it’s important for campaigns to have contacts at social media companies and know what steps they’ll take if the companies or their accounts are compromised.