Election Security Under Siege: Influence Operations Threaten Democratic Foundations

China and North Korea are using new smart computer programs called AI. AI makes their cyber attacks stronger and better at causing problems. This is very worrying for countries that let people vote and make their own choices. Those are called democratic countries. Microsoft wants democratic countries to be careful and protected from these bad cyber attacks by China and North Korea.

Undermining the Electoral Process

India is at special risk because of its frequent elections, especially the big Lok Sabha elections that go on for weeks. These cyber attacks from other countries are meant to cause trouble and control what people think and believe. Some examples are Chinese hacker groups attacking military exercises in other countries just before the events, likely to steal sensitive information.

Election Security Under Siege

China is very good at using the internet and social media to influence people’s opinions and views in democratic countries where freedom of speech is allowed. They take inspiration from Russian disinformation efforts like Doppelganger. The Spamouflage operation from China was identified as a major source of false and manipulative information online by Meta.

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AI-Fueled Deception

The rise of AI technology like ChatGPT has made disinformation campaigns even more powerful. AI can now create very realistic fake videos, images, voices and posts that look completely real. During elections in Taiwan, Chinese-linked groups used AI-generated audio and deepfake videos to trick people into voting a certain way.

Fortifying Democratic Resilience

To stop this bad thing from happening, countries that are democratic need to teach their people how to recognize fake things online. They have to make people better at telling what is real and what is not real on the internet. Democratic nations also need to give more money to protect their elections from cyber attacks. The security for elections using computers and the internet must be very strong.