The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued guidance on Wednesday that details how to protect election infrastructure from foreign malign influence operations.
The 8-page guidance document shares the latest tactics in foreign malign influence campaigns, offering recent examples and recommendations for mitigations for election infrastructure stakeholders. While many of the tactics are not new, the guidance points out that the rapid advancement of AI has made it easier to spread convincing foreign malign influence content.
“The elections process is the golden thread of American democracy, which is why our foreign adversaries deliberately target our elections infrastructure with their influence operations. Defending our democratic process is the responsibility of all of us,” CISA Senior Advisor Cait Conley said in a press release.
“CISA is committed to doing its part to ensure these officials – and the American public – don’t have to fight this battle alone. We will continue to work with the election community to ensure they have the tools and information they need to run safe and secure elections in 2024 and beyond,” Conley added.
Some of the tactics highlighted in the guidance include cloning the voices of public figures, creating false evidence of an alleged security incident, and leveraging social media platforms.
The document offers several recommendations to prepare for and respond to foreign malign influence operations, such as promoting transparency around the elections process, educating stakeholders and staff, securing personal and organizational social media accounts, and establishing and enforcing strong cybersecurity protocols.
It also recommends organizations consider the use of authentication techniques, such as watermarks, “to mark your content as verifiably originating from you and to be able to point out when an altered version of your content lacks your unique digital watermark.”
“The FBI and its partners work diligently every day to disrupt foreign malign influence operations targeting our democratic institutions,” said Acting Assistant Director Joseph Rothrock of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “We are putting out this guide because our strategy in combatting this threat starts with awareness and collaboration. We will continue to relentlessly pursue bad actors looking to disrupt our election infrastructure.”
“Foreign actors continue to pursue efforts aimed at sowing discord among the American people, with the ultimate goal of eroding confidence in our democratic institutions,” added ODNI Foreign Malign Influence Center Director Jessica Brandt. “The normalization of influence activities, combined with the rise of new technologies, increasingly presents a whole-of-society challenge for the Intelligence Community to address alongside the broader U.S. Government, industry, and civil society.”
