MINNESOTA, USA — Election integrity is crucial to a fair and balanced election, and work to ensure that can take months. While that may be, there is always the risk of something happening – though some experts say there will be little issues because of it.
"I think there's astronomically low risk of a cyber attack compromising the U.S. election system today," Karl Mattson, Chief Information Security Officer for Endor Labs, said.
Mattson said the reason for that is simple.
"Those networks are really offline, and so they really are extremely difficult to attack at this point," he said. "And so the compromising the integrity of an ongoing election at this point is an astronomically low probability event."
Despite that, Mattson said the thought of issues with the system can pose risks, and could shake faith in the integrity of the election system.
"There is definitely risk, that is true, will persist today and after the election, because the confidence that the election has integrity matters just as much as the reality of the elections integrity itself," Mattson said.
While risks of a cyber attack are low, Mattson said there are other concerns, including misinformation.
"If you feel like engaging with a candidate that you support at the last minute, go to their website and donate, or go to the nonprofit and donate," he said. "Responding to a text message is just as likely to be participating in a fraud event or a fraud campaign as it is to supporting a candidate."
"The second thing is what we see in this sort of 24, 48 hour window of the election, are these things like fake generated content, and so we ought to be cautious about overreacting," Mattson continued. "So if we see on one social media channel content that makes us enraged or wants us to react strongly, the first thing we have to do is look... is that content anywhere else?"