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posted by chromas on Friday August 07 2020, @02:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the votehack dept.

U.S. Offers Reward of $10M for Info Leading to Discovery of Election Meddling:

The U.S. government is concerned about foreign interference in the 2020 election, so much so that it will offer a reward of up to $10 million for anyone providing information that could lead to tracking down potential cybercriminals aiming to sabotage the November vote.

The U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, overseen by the Diplomatic Security Service, will pay for info that can identify or locate someone workingwith[sic] or for a foreign government “for the purpose of interfering with U.S. elections through certain illegal cyber activities,” according to a release posted on the department’s website.

The reward covers anyone seeking to interfere with an election at the federal, state or local level by violating or even aiding the violation of a U.S. law against computer fraud and abuse, according to the department.

“The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030, criminalizes unauthorized computer intrusions and other forms of fraud related to computers,” according to the release. “Among other offenses, the statute prohibits unauthorized accessing of computers to obtain information and transmit it to unauthorized recipients.”

The department is encouraging anyone with information on foreign interference in U.S. elections to contact them via their website or contact a U.S. Regional Security Officer at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate.

[...] [Voting machine-maker Election Systems & Software ] ES&S said that its formally released policy applies to all digital assets owned and operated by ES&S – including corporate IT networks and public-facing websites.

No word on rewards for non-foreign interference.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @01:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @01:28PM (#1032861)

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/state-department-reward-russia-election-interference-spam [buzzfeednews.com]

    KYIV — When Artyom Vysokov received a text message offering him as much as $10 million for information on Russian election interference from a number used mainly for distributing spam and phishing messages, he thought it was “some type of fraud.”

    But then he saw reports from several Russian news outlets about other people receiving similar messages on their cellphones and realized they were coming shortly after the US State Department announced a new campaign to defend the American presidential election from foreign attackers.

    “I realized that I was wrong and this is really true,” Vysokov, who runs a blog about monetizing websites, told BuzzFeed News. “But sending such text messages through a service that usually sends spam was not the best idea.”

    https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/08/06/russians-are-receiving-text-messages-about-the-u-s-state-department-s-10-million-reward-for-information-on-election-interference [meduza.io]

    Russian social media users began sharing screenshots of these messages online on August 6, the day after the U.S. State Department announced the reward offer. Reports about the messages also started to appear in local news outlets, such as the Yekaterinburg-based outlet It’s My City and the Vladivostok-based outlet Vl.ru, among others. According to the website Pikabu.ru, residents of the Russian cities of Saratov, Krasnodar, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Perm, and Tyumen also reported receiving similar messages.
    “Did the #StateDepartment write you an SMS?”

    Yekaterinburg Duma Deputy Timofey Zhukov even published a screenshot of the message he received on Telegram, revealing that it was sent through the program “CentrSoobsh” — a service typically used for delivering spam or phishing messages, says Newsru.com.
    Yekaterinburg Duma Deputy Timofey Zhukov’s screenshot, shared on Telegram

    Who’s sending the messages and whether or not they are connected to the U.S. State Department remains unknown. According to Vl.ru, the phone number that sent the text messages doesn’t accept replies. One reader told It’s My City that she actually received two messages: one in English and one in Russian.

    The text messages supposedly contain a link to a post by the verified twitter account @RFJ_Russian (Rewards for Justice, Русский). The tweet, written in Russian, explains the State Department’s reward offer and provides contact information through the messaging apps Telegram, WhatsApp, and Signal. It also contains the English-language hashtag #Election_Reward, which leads to posts in a number of different languages about Rewards for Justice offers (many of the posts are from verified accounts apparently linked to the U.S. State Department).