Macron Campaign Hacking During The French Presidential Election

Cybercriminals’ interference and efforts to
undermine the electoral process is becoming a trend. France’s newly elected
president, Emmanuel Macron, is the latest victim to experience such malicious
attacks, resulting in a massive leak of documents one day before
the French presidential election. This follows other similar high
profile cyberattacks during the US elections and the massive data breach
that affected 55million voters before the 2016 Philippine national
elections. McAfee, as one of the world’s largest pure-play cybersecurity
firms, shares their views on how this issue heightens cybersecurity, especially
within geopolitics, and how countries need to take caution and safeguard the
electoral process.

“Cyber has created a new role for espionage on the field
of geopolitical competition the nations.

Countries have always surveilled each other’s political
figures and organizations using the latest technologies available to them.
They’ve always used that capacity to exfiltrate sensitive data such as
blueprints to rivals’ military technologies.

But these recent incidents in the US and French elections
reveal a new dynamic, where cyber espionage is used to weaponize compromised
information as a political tool. The sensitive details of political campaigns’
inner workings are leaked through the powerful, amplifying mechanisms of our
modern media to tarnish reputation, influence opinion and sway voter behavior.

The most powerful weapons we can use in response to such
malicious activity are awareness and skepticism. We must recognize such media
and electoral manipulation for what it is, and understand that stolen genuine
information can easily be poisoned with inaccurate information to inflict
maximum political damage to a candidate, party and nation.”

Steve Grobman, Chief Technology Officer, McAfee