US midterms likely to be targeted by foreign cyberespionage efforts

Numerous state-sponsored threat groups are expected with high confidence by Mandiant to launch cyberespionage efforts against U.S. election infrastructure as the midterm polls near, according to The Register. "We have tracked activity from groups associated with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other nations targeting organizations and individuals related to elections in the U.S. and/or other nations with apparent goals ranging from information collection and establishing footholds or stealing data for later activity to one known case of a destructive attack against critical election infrastructure," said Mandiant. Meanwhile, Mandiant has expressed "moderate confidence" about election disruption as a result of ransomware, distributed denial-of-service, and other cyberattacks. While information operations are likely to be leveraged by Russia, China, and Iran, they are unlikely to hijack voting machines, according to Mandiant. "We believe notable compromises of actual voting devices or other activity impacting the integrity of votes is unlikely," said researchers.