Hacked Elections Can Harm Sovereign Credit Ratings, Moody’s Says

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-10/hacked-elections-can-harm-sovereign-credit-ratings-moody-s-says

By Eric Lam
Bloomberg.com
July 10, 2020

The threat of cyber attackers subverting elections around the world puts not 
just democratic institutions at risk but also a country’s creditworthiness, 
according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Among countries with popular national elections, Moody’s sovereign-credit 
ratings and perceptions of electoral integrity are highly correlated, authors 
including Leroy Terrelonge, a cyber risk analyst, wrote in the report. Cyber 
attacks undermine that integrity, they wrote. The analysis uses rankings from 
the Electoral Integrity Project’s 2019 report.

Targeted attacks using social media are especially effective, and such 
interference from foreign actors became highly publicized in the 2016 U.S. 
presidential election, the report said. Moody’s warning comes months ahead of 
the next presidential election in November, with the Department of Homeland 
Security now looking for help to track and analyze social media disinformation 
campaigns from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Cyber attackers may also target voting machines or other election technology 
infrastructure to alter results or prevent voting, the report said.

[...]

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