Yubico, the leading provider of hardware authentication security keys, and Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organisation committed to bringing free cybersecurity tools and resources to federal election campaigns, announced the results of their survey, ‘Impact of Cybersecurity and AI on the 2024 election season’.
Conducted by OnePoll, a leading provider of international market research and data communication solutions, this survey polled 2,000 registered voters in the U.S. to better understand how voters perceive cybersecurity ahead of the 2024 U.S. elections, the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the concerns they have about the cybersecurity of political campaigns, regardless of party affiliations.
“Given the sudden advancement and uncertainty of AI technology, it’s not surprising that over 78 per cent of respondents are concerned about AI-generated content being used to impersonate a political candidate or create inauthentic content, with Democrats at 79 per cent and Republicans at 80 per cent,” said David Treece, vice president of solutions architecture at Yubico (pictured). “Perhaps even more telling is that they believe AI will have a negative effect on this year’s election outcomes (42 per cent Democrats and 49 per cent Republicans).”
In addition to the threat of AI and deep fakes spreading misinformation, 85 per cent of respondents don’t have a high level of confidence that political campaigns effectively protect their personal information. If cybersecurity is not a top focus, campaigns run the risk of being breached, exposing personal data, experiencing a financial impact and more, all of which could have a negative effect on the entirety of the campaign.
In fact, 42 per cent of those who have donated to a campaign said their likelihood of donating again would change if the campaign was hacked, and 30 per cent report this would even change the likelihood of a candidate receiving their vote.
“Campaigns are the heart of our democracy and every campaign must adopt basic cybersecurity protections. This year’s election is particularly risky for cyber attacks directed at candidates, staffers, and anyone associated with a campaign,” said Michael Kaiser, president and CEO of Defending Digital Campaigns. “Having the right cybersecurity in place is not an option — it’s essential for anyone running a political operation. Otherwise, campaigns risk not only losing valuable data, but losing voters.”
Additional key findings include:
- 43 per cent of respondents believe that AI-generated content will negatively affect the outcome of the 2024 elections.
- When an audio clip with an AI voice was played, 41 per cent believed the AI voice was authentically human.
- 52 per cent of respondents have received an email and/or text message appearing to be from a campaign that they suspected was actually a phishing attempt.
- From a data security perspective, 85 per cent of respondents don’t have a high level of confidence that political campaigns effectively protect the personal information they collect.
- Registered voters would like to see campaigns and candidates:
- Take precautions to prevent their websites from being hacked (42 per cent)
- Use strong security measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their accounts (41 per cent)
- Have policies in place and train staffers and key volunteers on cybersecurity for the campaign and protecting personal information (38 per cent)
- Over a quarter of respondents (26 per cent) indicated they had not completed a transaction making a campaign donation because of concerns about the security of the transaction or how their personal information would be handled.
“Because campaigns are built on trust, potential hacks like fraudulent emails or messages sent out impersonating them via their social media accounts, where they are directly interacting with their audience, could be detrimental to campaigns,” added Treece. “It’s imperative that candidates take proper steps to protect their campaigns and more importantly, to build trust with voters by adopting modern cybersecurity practices like phishing-resistant authentication. Adding a layer of protection with a physical hardware security key, like a YubiKey, to online accounts is a crucial component to ensuring that campaigns remain secure.”
Since 2020, Yubico has donated tens of thousands of security keys to DDC on behalf of its philanthropic initiative–Secure it Forward–where the company donates YubiKeys to journalists, human rights activists and organisations that work to preserve democratic integrity, further diversity in tech and protect human rights.
“Collaboration is one of the most important ways to strengthen cybersecurity,” said Kaiser. “At DDC we are extremely grateful for our partnership with Yubico, whose generosity allows us to provide free security keys to campaigns, enabling them with the strongest account protection possible. The keys allow a computer user to protect cloud, social, and financial accounts on the campaign, as well as personal accounts and all primary targets of bad actors.”
With election season underway, what can campaigns do to protect themselves and build trust with voters? Even though cybersecurity attacks are becoming more sophisticated with tools like AI, there are simple ways to help mitigate these risks, including using strong, unique passwords and storing them in a password manager, along with enabling multi-factor authentication whenever possible using physical security keys like those available from Yubico and the DDC.
DDC, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organisation, is committed to bringing free cybersecurity products, services, training, and information to federal political campaigns and committees and down-ballot candidates in a growing number of states. It has an extensive network of partners and resources to prepare political campaigns with the tools they need to stay secure. In partnership with Yubico, they provide YubiKeys at no cost to political campaigns regardless of party affiliation.
To view the full results of the survey, you can download an overview of the report here. For more information on Yubico, visit www.yubico.com. To learn more about Defending Digital Campaigns’ programs, visit https://defendcampaigns.org/.
