{"id":16287,"date":"2017-01-03T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2017\/01\/03\/2016-presidential-election-and-a-national-cybersecurity-investigation\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:01:15","slug":"2016-presidential-election-and-a-national-cybersecurity-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/cyber\/2017\/01\/03\/2016-presidential-election-and-a-national-cybersecurity-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 presidential election and a national cybersecurity investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many cybersecurity practitioners are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the results of the investigation directed by the White House into the hacking events that surrounded the 2016 presidential election. They became even more anxious after recent publications, such as ” The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.<\/a>” by The New York Times. Their level of anticipation was further increased when a bipartisan effort to investigation cyberattacks on our election process was publicly discussed. A previous investigation found that the compromise of the democratic system was due to a phishing email after it was miscategorized as being legitimate! Phishing attacks are easy to conduct and focus on the weakest link\u00a0\u2014\u00a0humans instead of vulnerabilities in computer hardware and software. It should be noted that many cybersecurity professionals consider phishing emails as the No. 1 cyberthreat\u00a0given their ease of construction and success rates. However, you must also consider that on average, a phishing website is online for less than 15 hours. Although the White House request is the most recent call for an investigation, it is not the first. In mid-November, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., sent a letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, requesting that Chaffetz launch an investigation of Russian intervention in the election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

But wait, there’s more! In early November, the website of Donald Trump was hacked, resulting in a highly visual text banner proclaiming: “I’M WITH HER.” And let’s not forget the mid-October headlines about federal investigators looking into whether Russian hackers were behind cyberattacks that targeted a vendor involved with Florida’s election system. August news reports disclosed information about an FBI investigation of alleged Russian involvement in a hacking campaign designed to undermine the Democratic Party. But we can’t stop there\u00a0\u2014\u00a0we need to go back even further. In mid-March, the virtual state\/hacking group known as Anonymous declared “Total War” on the Trump campaign in a YouTube video.