Skip to main content
cybersecurity

The First 2020 Election-Related Ransomware Attack Hit a Georgia County

Turns out there were still some “firsts” left in 2020
article cover

Francis Scialabba

less than 3 min read

Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business

Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.

When it comes to election hacking in 2020, it turns out there were still some “firsts” left—namely, the first reported ransomware attack on an election-related system.

Georgia’s Hall County experienced the Oct. 7 attack, which was first reported by The Gainesville Times. Here’s what got hit:

  • A database used to verify voter signatures on absentee ballots
  • The county’s online voter precinct map
  • County government phone and email services

Ransomware attacks are generally financially, not politically, motivated. The ransoms are costly—around $400,000 for local governments, on average—and since experts advise against paying up, systems can be sidelined for a while.

Near future: "At least 18 county or municipal bodies have been impacted by ransomware since the beginning of September—about three per week—so it's very likely that other bodies will be hit in the run-up to the election,” Brett Callow, a threat analyst at the security firm Emsisoft, told CNN.

Down the road: Some cybersecurity experts are optimistic about AI’s potential to fight ransomware and other cyberattacks on local governments. Unsupervised ML trained by large-scale data sets can learn to detect malicious files and flag anomalies. But the tech hasn’t been widely adopted for this election cycle.

Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business

Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.