FBI WARNS VS DISINFORMATION ON US POLL RESULTS BY FOREIGN AGENTS

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have warned US voters against attempts to spread disinformation regarding the results of the 2020 elections.

In an announcement dated September 22, 2020 (September 23, 2020 in Manila), FBI said “foreign actors and cybercriminals could create new websites, change existing websites, and create or share corresponding social media content to spread false information in an attempt to discredit the electoral process and undermine confidence in US democratic institutions.

The FBI-CISA announcement came as US President Donald Trump cast suspicions on the conduct of the polls, charging without proof that they are “rigged” against him, a repeat of his false claim in 2016, when he lost to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes but carried the Electoral College. “State and local officials typically require several days to weeks to certify elections’ final results in order to ensure every legally cast vote is accurately counted. The increased use of mail-in ballots due to COVID-19 protocols could leave officials with incomplete results on election night. Foreign actors and cybercriminals could exploit the time required to certify and announce elections’ results by disseminating disinformation that includes reports of voter suppression, cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure, voter or ballot fraud, and other problems intended to convince the public of the elections’ illegitimacy,” the announcement added.

“The FBI and CISA urge the American public to critically evaluate the sources of the information they consume and to seek out reliable and verified information from trusted sources, such as state and local election officials. The public should also be aware that if foreign actors or cyber criminals were able to successfully change an election-related website, the underlying data and internal systems would remain uncompromised,” it concluded.

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