Posted on September 20, 2018 at 8:06 AM

Election Hacking Soon to End Courtesy Says Symantec

Symantec is coming up with a new tool endowed with the capacity to block emails that have been hacked thus curbing the spread of fake information. In an announcement by the company on Tuesday, the company says it would release the tool for future US elections and campaigns.

Copycat Websites and Election Hacking

Websites that look alike are often employed by hackers to imitate the official website of government. Once that is done, the platform is used to spread unfounded information about a candidate or the election process.

Already, this approach has been used to trick workers of certain campaign organizations to enter their passwords and usernames. This is what is called phishing.

Such was the approach employed by hackers to access important internal documents belonging to the US Democratic Party and its organization. Equally, a member of the party’s presidential campaign team also fell victim to this infraction. This was discovered after the hackers from Russia were indicted.

What to Expect With Symantec’s SpoofProof

With this new tool, the case of election hacking may be gone for the best. Already, many people are worried about election hacking going by what happened in 2016.

With the midterm elections already near, many people think that Symantec’s tool may be incapacitated given that the hackers may have penetrated deep already. However, many believe that for elections coming up in 2020, the tool may have been better positioned to guide against hacking.

In this era of email, one tough nut to crack in terms of security is phishing. That’s because hackers have devised ways of imitating websites such that it resembles the real ones closely.

To this effect, the FTC has cautioned that email readers should be wary of following links attached to their emails. According to FTC, users can equally block hackers from their inbox by employing the renowned two-factor authentication to guard them. With Symantec’s tool in full operation now, human errors may finally be a thing of the past.

Tackling Phishing the worst Email Problem

Symantec’s working principle would be to take photos of real websites and checks through the internet to see if there is another one masquerading as it. Enric Chien had said that campaign or election officials who feel they are vulnerable could get registered for the service. The Symantec tool keeps those websites secured from phishing.

With time, as the benefiting campaign organizations deem it fit, it could offer to completely buy the tool. However, according to Chien, it is not the aim of the organization at present to make profits. Chien had made it clear that their aim is to notify administrators of any perceived phishing.