Microsoft, whose software for text documents, spreadsheets, and e-mail has become a fixture in American offices, is introducing new cybersecurity tools for political candidates and campaigns that rely on the apps after seizing more Internet accounts created by Russian government hackers.
The new measures from the Redmond, Wash.-based company include notification of attacks across organizational and personal e-mail systems, security training and previews of the latest protective measures through its AccountGuard initiative, available at no extra cost to political organizations using its subscription-based Office 365.
“The Internet has become an avenue for some governments to steal and leak information, spread disinformation and probe and potentially attempt to tamper with voting systems,” Brad Smith, the company’s president and chief legal officer, said in a post on Microsoft’s website. “We saw this during the U.S. general election in 2016, last May during the French presidential election, and now in a broadening way as Americans are preparing for the November midterm elections.”
Security for the midterms has become a point of contention in Washington, D.C., and nationwide, with special counsel Robert Mueller still investigating whether the Russian government worked with President Trump’s campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. U.S. officials have warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin, his denials notwithstanding, has already begun interfering with the November vote.
In response, Congress has allocated $380 million in 2018 to fund election security measures, though lawmakers have blocked efforts to increase that amount. Trump, meanwhile, has disputed claims that Moscow is responsible for hacking rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign and disclosing embarrassing material through WikiLeaks; he routinely calls Mueller’s probe a “rigged witch hunt.”
The cyberattacks, combined with the disclosure that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were used to influence and inflame voters in 2016, have nonetheless prompted aggressive investments by U.S. tech companies to prevent similar occurrences.
A representative of Twitter, a preferred platform for Trump himself, told the House Judiciary in July that it was flagging 9.9 million accounts a week for suspicious activity, a fourfold increase from the same time a year ago. The company, Facebook and Twitter all reported finding accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked digital propaganda group, which they removed.
Microsoft, which has obtained court orders 12 times in the past two years to shut down fake websites created by a Russian group known as Strontium – or by aliases including Fancy Bear and APT28 – said the domains seized most recently appeared to mimic the web addresses of conservative groups like the International Republican Institute, whose board includes six Republican senators.
“Cyberattacks have become one of the preferred tools of authoritarians around the world to harass and undermine independent organizations and democratic governments,” Institute President Daniel Twining said. “This latest attempt is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights. It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticize Mr. Putin’s authoritarian regime.”
Other seized domains looked like those belonging to the Hudson Institute and various accounts of the U.S. Senate.
“We are concerned by the continued activity targeting these and other sites and directed toward elected officials, politicians, political groups and think tanks across the political spectrum,” Microsoft’s Smith wrote. “This pattern mirrors the type of activity we saw prior to the 2016 election.”
The Hudson Institute, which organized an event last month where Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned of continued Russian interference, said it had been aware of the attempt for some time.
“We can only assume that this attack was intended to gather information about, and compromise or otherwise disrupt, Hudson’s longstanding democracy-promotion programs, and in particular, our initiatives to expose the activities of foreign kleptocratic regimes,” the organization said in a statement on its website.
In his July 13 speech, Coats highlighted “aggressive attempts to manipulate social media and spread propaganda focused on hot-button issues” with the goal of aggravating social and political divisions in the U.S.
“Focusing on the potential impact of these actions on our midterm elections misses the more important point,” Coats said. “These actions are persistent, pervasive and meant to undermine America’s democracy on a daily basis, regardless of whether it’s election time or not.”
