Possible Actions by Hackers Leading up to the 2024 European Elections

With the European elections fast approaching, national and European institutions are bracing for a wave of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. A report lists the main threats weighing on the election.

Will the vote at the polls during the European elections be targeted by hackers? This is very likely, and the attacks could easily go unnoticed or seriously disrupt the vote.

“ As the 2024 European Parliament elections approach, a confluence of political, social and cyber challenges poses significant threats to democratic processes across Europe », note cyber experts. Two states in particular should already be monitored ahead of the elections: Russia and China.

The first would carry out information and influence campaigns with the aim of undermining support for Ukraine. EU officials have already cash payment status to members of the European Parliament in order to promote pro-Russian narratives. As for China, it should intensify its efforts to sow division between member states in order to promote its interests in Europe. “ Countries with larger populations, and therefore a greater number of designated MEPs, are particularly vulnerable », notes the report.

Cyber experts' predictions for the elections. // Source: Sekoia

Hacking followed by leak of sensitive documents

The first threat for experts would be the “hack & leak” method, i.e. hacking and data leaking in the process. These operations are carried out over the long term and involve an initial intrusion into a party's computer system or a candidate's position. The extracted data will be published online during the campaign and accompanied by false rhetoric to influence the population.

The perfect example is the hacking of the Democratic Party during the US presidential elections. According to Special Judge Mueller's report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, the operation aimed to discredit candidate Hillary Clinton and undermine public confidence in the electoral process.

The other notable case is the case MacronLeaks in 2017. More than 20,000 internal emails linked to Emmanuel Macron's campaign were leaked on the far-right online forum 4Chan during the presidential election. This leak, however, did not really affect the head of state's campaign, whether in the first or second round.

The cyberattack against the electoral organization

The infrastructures responsible for the smooth running of the polls can also be targeted. Hackers may attempt to postpone the vote or simply seek to affect voters' confidence in their institutions and representatives. Such attacks remain relatively rare, even if they have already been deployed in the past, against Ukraine in 2014 after the Maidan revolution.

Disinformation and influence campaigns

The other method consists of influencing the public with cyber resources in the information field and social networks. Sekoia experts chose the example of elections in Taiwan to illustrate the impact that these campaigns can have. “ Research on the effect of misinformation on Taiwanese voters in the 2018 local elections concluded that misinformation influenced Taiwanese voters' perceptions. »

The message published on the Russian cyber army's Telegram channel congratulating itself on having brought down the LREM site. // Source: Numerama — The message published on the Telegram channel of the Russian cyber army congratulating itself on having brought down the LREM site in 2022. // Source: Numerama

“ More than 50% of voters made their decision without precise information about the campaign. Notably, politically unaffiliated voters, less adept at identifying fake news, who tend to support China-aligned candidates » we can read in the report.

Denial of service attacks to create panic

This method, which can be linked to the previous tactic, does not require many resources and aims primarily to influence public opinion. The denial of service attack (DDOS) consists of launching connection waves directed simultaneously towards a specific site. If the number of requests is high enough, the server is no longer able to process them, and the platform becomes inoperable.

This type of attack is certainly annoying, but the impact is often limited to the shutdown of a site for a few hours, and without major damage. However, the hacktivist groups behind these operations like to exaggerate the damage and take advantage of media coverage to create an anxiety-provoking climate within the population.

So remember that if your town hall website is down a few days before the election, this does not mean that Kremlin hackers have hacked the data of the town's residents.