{"id":16019,"date":"2018-08-03T15:06:05","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T15:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/08\/03\/political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:35:15","slug":"political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/federal-oversight\/2018\/08\/03\/political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms\/","title":{"rendered":"Political campaigns on their own as cyberthreats roil midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NEW YORK \u2014 Kamala Harris has been the target of social media misinformation campaigns since she became a U.S. senator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every month for the last 18 months, her office has discovered on average between three and five fake Facebook profiles pretending to be hers, according to a Harris aide. It\u2019s unclear who creates the pages, which are often designed to mislead American voters about the ambitious Democratic senator\u2019s policies and positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity, like more than a half dozen campaign officials contacted for this story, for fear of attracting unwanted attention from adversaries or scrutiny on the Senate office\u2019s evolving cybersecurity protocols.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/federal-oversight\/2018\/08\/02\/us-officials-raise-alarm-about-2018-2020-election-security\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP_18117708575254.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Federal officials raise alarm about election security<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">President Donald Trump has directed a \u201cvast, government-wide effort\u201d to protect American elections after Russian attempts to interfere in 2016, the White House said Thursday.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such internet mischief has become commonplace in U.S. politics. Facebook announced earlier this week that it uncovered \u201csophisticated\u201d efforts, possibly linked to Russia, to influence U.S. politics on its platforms. Senior intelligence officials declared Thursday that foreign adversaries continue waging a quiet war against U.S. campaigns and election systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, one thing has become clear: With the midterm elections just three months away, campaigns are largely on their own in the increasingly challenging task of protecting sensitive information and countering false or misleading content on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Democratic National Committee has worked to strengthen its own internal security protocols and encouraged state parties to do the same, according to Raffi Krikorian, who previously worked for Uber and Twitter and now serves as the DNC\u2019s chief technology officer.<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link smg-interstitial-link--fallback wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fifthdomain.com\/dod\/cybercom\/2018\/08\/03\/cyber-command-chief-prepared-to-conduct-operations-in-response-to-election-meddling\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__fallback-link\">Cyber Command chief prepared to conduct operations in response to election meddling<\/a><\/aside>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in an interview, he acknowledged there are limits to how much the national party can protect the thousands of Democratic campaigns across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re providing as much assistance to campaigns as we can, but there\u2019s only so much we can do,\u201d Krikorian said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFor all the high-level campaigns I\u2019m worried, but at least there are people to talk to,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe mid-sized campaigns are at least getting technical volunteers, but the truly down-ballot campaigns, that\u2019s where the state parties and coordinated campaigns can help, but there\u2019s no doubt that this is an uphill battle when we\u2019re dealing with a foreign adversary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Officials in both political parties have intensified cybersecurity efforts, although the known cases of interference have so far overwhelmingly focused on Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The DNC now has a staff of 40 on its technical team, led by Krikorian and other Silicon Valley veterans hired in the months after Russians hacked the party\u2019s email system and released a trove of damaging messages in the months before President Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Top U.S. intelligence and homeland security officials raised new alarms Thursday about outside efforts to influence the 2018 and 2020 elections during a White House press briefing.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-smg-jwplayer-video\"><atype-video-jwplayer nostick=\"true\" playlisturl=\"https:\/\/cdn.jwplayer.com\/v2\/playlists\/fCzRqMW8?tags=508eea97-2ee8-4d64-a8b6-6898a73e0001\" poster=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/video-poster-508eea97-2ee8-4d64-a8b6-6898a73e0001.jpg\" aspectratio=\"16 \/ 9\" mute autostart=\"false\"><\/atype-video-jwplayer><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">In an August 2 White House briefing, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen explain what is being done to protect U.S. elections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen said: \u201cOur democracy is in the crosshairs,\u201d while Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats added: \u201cWe continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Facebook said it removed 32 accounts from its site and Instagram because they were involved in \u201ccoordinated\u201d political behavior and appeared to be fake. Nearly 300,000 people followed at least one of the accounts, which featured names such as \u201cBlack Elevation\u201d and \u201cResisters\u201d and were designed to manipulate Americans with particular ethnic, cultural or political identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In many cases, House and Senate political campaigns said they\u2019re just beginning to adopt basic internal security protocols, such as two-step verification for all email, storage and social media accounts and encrypted messaging services such as Wickr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no protocol in place for campaigns or national parties to monitor broader social media misinformation campaigns, however. Nor is there any sign that law enforcement is playing a proactive role to protect campaigns from meddling on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The FBI has set up a Foreign Influence Task Force and intelligence agencies are collecting information on Russian aggression, but campaigns report no regular contact with law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/home\/2018\/08\/01\/leaked-chats-show-alleged-russian-spy-seeking-hacking-tools\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18213478070757.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Leaked chats show alleged Russian spy seeking hacking tools<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Six years ago, a Russian-speaking cybersecurity researcher received an unsolicited email from Kate S. Milton.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAt the end of the day, the U.S. government is not putting any type of a bubble around any (campaign). They do not have the authority, capacity or capability to do it,\u201d said Shawn Henry, a former senior FBI official who now leads the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which works with political campaigns. \u201cNSA is not sitting in the ISPs filtering out malicious traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Henry added: \u201cThey\u2019ve got to take pro-active actions themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this month, Microsoft said it discovered a fake domain had been set up as the landing page for phishing attacks by a hacking group believed to have links to Russian intelligence. A Microsoft spokesman said this week that additional analysis confirmed the attempted attacks occurred in late 2017 and targeted multiple accounts associated with the offices of two legislators running for re-election. Microsoft did not name the lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network in 2017. Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford of Nebraska also recently confirmed that his 2016 campaign emails had been hacked by Russian agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ashford, who narrowly lost his seat to Republican Don Bacon that year, said hackers obtained all of his campaign email correspondence with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He said he was notified of the breach in late July or early August 2016 by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ashford has said he doesn\u2019t believe any of the stolen information ever went to Bacon or the Republican Party, and he doesn\u2019t know whether it made a difference in his race. He did face a series of anonymous political attacks on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By their very nature, U.S. political campaigns can be a challenge to defend from a cybersecurity standpoint. They are essentially pop-up organizations that rely heavily on volunteers and are focused on a singular task \u2014 winning. In addition, high-level IT expertise costs money and campaigns typically run on tight budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some 2018 House campaigns have yet to hire basic communications staffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the case of California Sen. Harris, who is considered a 2020 presidential prospect, her office plans to continue rooting out fake social media profiles on its own. They have had no contact with the FBI. They have reported the issue to Facebook in every case \u2014 not the other way around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s on the forefront of everybody\u2019s mind,\u201d said Patrick McHugh, a former Senate campaign official who now leads the Democratic-aligned super PAC Priorities USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He acknowledged the tremendous challenge for many campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAll it takes is one person on a campaign to make a mistake,\u201d McHugh said. \u201cYou\u2019re up against a foreign country. That\u2019s a pretty big adversary that can and will go to all ends to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Cassidy reported from Atlanta. AP correspondent Grant Schulte reported from Lincoln, Nebraska.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kamala Harris has been the target of social media misinformation campaigns since she became a U.S. senator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":9,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"9":{"categories":["cyber"],"primary_category":"cyber"}}},"categories":[106,31,33,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[548,5383],"class_list":["post-16019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"XCL6SZ776NDRRLLWPDDSYTM7ZE","arc_canonical_url":"\/critical-infrastructure\/2018\/08\/03\/political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Political campaigns on their own as cyberthreats roil midterms - Federal Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kamala Harris has been the target of social media misinformation campaigns since she became a U.S. senator.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Political campaigns on their own as cyberthreats roil midterms\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kamala Harris has been the target of social media misinformation campaigns since she became a U.S. senator.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/federal-oversight\/2018\/08\/03\/political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Federal Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-03T15:06:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T04:35:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Steve Peoples, The Associated Press, Christina A. 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Cassidy, The Associated Press\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\n\t    \"@context\": \"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\n\t    \"@graph\": [\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"Article\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/federaltimes\\\/federal-oversight\\\/2018\\\/08\\\/03\\\/political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms\\\/#article\",\n\t            \"isPartOf\": {\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/federaltimes\\\/federal-oversight\\\/2018\\\/08\\\/03\\\/political-campaigns-on-their-own-as-cyber-threats-roil-midterms\\\/\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"author\": {\n\t                \"name\": \"migration\",\n\t                \"@id\": 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