news

Georgian Foreign Minister fends off cyber attacks ahead of elections

VaselineOctober 24, 2024

1 2 minutes read

Georgian Foreign Minister fends off cyber attacks ahead of elections

It is believed that the attack was carried out by a foreign country and the website was flooded with fake traffic to crash it.

The Georgian foreign minister’s office earlier this month repelled a cyberattack that appeared to be an attempt to shut down the website voters use to request absentee ballots ahead of the election.

The threat was discovered after the agency noticed hundreds of thousands of attempts to access the site on Oct. 14, a day before early voting began in Georgia, the secretary of state confirmed to USA TODAY.

Although cybersecurity experts were able to thwart the attack, the secretary of state said it is still not certain who was behind it. Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s chief secretary of state, told CNN that the threat may have come from abroad.

Upcoming elections: What you need to know about voter registration, voting locations and deadlines in all 50 states

Officials: Attempted cyberattack did not disrupt absentee ballot website

CNN first reported the cyberattack attempt Wednesday evening after election officials confirmed to the newspaper that hundreds of thousands of IP addresses from numerous countries were flooding Georgia’s website.

The alleged attack involved more than 420,000 near-simultaneous entry attempts from around the world, the secretary of state confirmed to USA TODAY after it was previously reported by WSB-TV, an Atlanta broadcaster.

Sterling, which oversees elections in the battleground state, posted the reports from both media outlets in separate tweets on social media site X on Wednesday evening.

“The attack was quickly detected and mitigated,” Sterling said in the first post, adding in the second post: “This was a big win for our cybersecurity team and partners.”

Sterling told CNN that the attempted attack did not disrupt voters’ ability to request ballots.

A spokesperson for the agency confirmed the reports to USA TODAY Thursday morning, but provided no further information.

The attack was carried out amid growing fears of foreign interference in the upcoming presidential elections. On Wednesday, US intelligence officials said Russia was behind a fake video smearing Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz with false sexual assault allegations as part of an election interference campaign in favor of Donald Trump.

The cyber attack took place on the eve of early elections in Georgia

The attack also took place on the eve of early voting from October 15 in Georgia.

In the days since early voting began, Georgia voters have turned out in droves to cast their ballots. As of Monday, the eighth day of early voting, more than 1.5 million Georgians had voted early, “shattering previous early voting performance,” the foreign minister said in a press release.

According to the agency, in the last presidential election in 2020, 1,010,162 Georgians had voted by the eighth day of early voting.

“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to vote. It really is that simple,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement. “Over the past four years, we have worked tirelessly to prepare for this election by adding early voting days and investing in infrastructure… We have been tested and we are ready.”

Contributions: Reuters

Eric Lagatta covers the latest and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

VaselineOctober 24, 2024

1 2 minutes read