US Election Polls 2020, that are slated to be held on November 3rd 2020(Tuesday) are likely to face a cyber threat from US Adversaries, says a report released by Microsoft. Evidence is out that Russian hacking group Fancy Bear has targeted both the election candidates aka Donald Trump and Joe Biden to steal vital information about their upcoming campaign to lure the voters on to their side.
The Satya Nadella led firm states it has stopped similar campaigns launched by China and Iran last month, where the aim was to take over the voter registration databases of three states.
Note- In March 2016, a cyber attack launched on the email server of Hillary Clinton led to the leak of vital information to the media, eventually making the then presidential probable Trump as the President of United States.
A source from Microsoft’s security team says that Vladimir Putin’s state funded hacking army is behind trump, while Biden is been targeted by Chinese hacking group Hurricane Panda.
In a separate incident tracked down by Microsoft in May this year, Iranian state funded hackers were seen hacking into the accounts of Trump administration between May and June of this year.
SKDK, a campaign firm working for Biden denied all the allegations put forward by Microsoft. But Biden stated that a state actor’s attack or influence was never a surprise to him.
On Wednesday, Microsoft warned both the candidates that their staff and their campaigns were being targeted by Russia, China and Iran for espionage or to weaponise the stolen information.
Based on the hacking techniques and the tools used for infiltration, Microsoft confirmed that Russian hacking group Strontium aka Fancy Bear might try to influence the November Presidential election through hacks.
