Articles about election

With authoritarian governments increasingly turning to censorship to silence dissent, limit information, and manipulate public opinion, it's perhaps not surprising that more people are turning to VPNs.

A new report from Proton VPN finds 2024 saw spikes in signups in 119 countries, including six countries with at least one spike in signups of over 5,000 percent, and four countries with at least one spike in signups of over 10,000 percent.

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New research from identity verification company Jumio finds growing concern among Americans about the political influence AI and deepfakes may have during upcoming elections and how they might influence trust in online media.

The study of over 8,000 adult consumers, split evenly across the UK, US, Singapore and Mexico, finds 72 percent of Americans are worried about the potential for AI and deepfakes to influence upcoming elections in their country.

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Given the quality of many politicians at the moment you might be forgiven for thinking that sometimes a deepfake would be an improvement.

But to be serious, a new study from Jumio of over 2,000 adults from across the UK finds that 60 percent are worried about the potential for AI and deepfakes to influence upcoming elections, and only 33 percent think they could easily spot a deepfake of a politician.

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As the US Congress talks about potentially banning TikTok, a new survey from Media.com shows that 70 percent of social media users are moderately to extremely concerned that misinformation will impact the 2024 US Presidential election.

Respondents are also inclined to hold social media companies accountable for misinformation and hate speech, with a slim majority (51 percent) favoring increased regulation and 62 percent calling for legal action for social platforms that allow misinformation to spread.

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The number of new posts on dark web forums about elections surged by 394 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, research released this week by cybersecurity firm NordVPN reveals. And in the first two months of 2024 alone, users have already published almost half as many posts.

With more than 60 countries holding national elections in 2024, representing over half of the world's population, this is a significant year in history for global democracy so it's unsurprising that there's an increase in interest.

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Cloud intrusions increased by 75 percent overall last year as adversaries set their sights on the cloud through the use of valid credentials.

This is one of the findings of the 2024 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report released today. It notes an increase in interactive intrusions and hands-on-keyboard activity (60 percent) as adversaries increasingly exploit stolen credentials to gain initial access at targeted organizations.

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With many countries around the world holding elections this year, Tidal Cyber has released a new report looking at the threats to global elections and offering insights on prioritizing defenses against top adversaries and election interference tactics, techniques, and behaviors.

The report identifies the top ten countries facing the highest election cyber interference threats this year as: the US, the UK, South Korea, India, Belgium, Pakistan, Belarus, Mexico, Georgia, and Indonesia.

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Election administration is an essential component of the democratic process, but is also very challenging. The number of voters involved, which can climb into the tens of millions, requires the use of systems that have been fine-tuned for maximum efficiency. Managing the complexity of those systems, which are often spread out over vast geographical areas, is daunting, especially considering the task often relies on a volunteer staff with high turnover rates. Looming over the entire enterprise is the requirement for unquestionable accuracy and crystal-clear transparency.

Artificial intelligence, which thrives at optimizing systems for maximum efficiency and accuracy, has the potential to provide valuable support for election administration. Leveraging it for that purpose, however, also requires that strong safeguards be put in place.

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Systems at the Electoral Commission, the body which oversees elections in the UK, have suffered a breach exposing electoral registers which hold the data of anyone registered to vote between 2014 and 2022. The Commission’s email system was also exposed in the breach.

In a statement on its website the Commission says it identified the incident in October last year but that systems were accessed as long ago as August 2021.

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