- The Washington Times - Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Google is warning political campaigns to prepare for cyberattackers to leverage artificial intelligence tools in new influence and hacking operations surrounding federal elections.

Google head of security policy Charley Snyder said Wednesday that his team observed cyberattackers testing AI for manipulating people and refining their language skills to trick unwitting victims.

At a cybersecurity summit in Google’s Virginia offices, Mr. Snyder said Google is investing “very heavily” in AI tools to defend against the cyberattackers who are toying with AI.

“We’ve found so far that they’re absolutely experimenting with them to generate inauthentic content, propaganda and the like,” Mr. Snyder said. “And I think it’s fair to assume that we’re going to see a lot more experimentation in that space.”

Cyberattackers targeting electoral campaigns are interested in access and information from candidates and their staffs to better understand private political maneuvering and to cause chaos.

For example, Chinese cyberattackers hacked Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign during the 2012 cycle, according to Matt Rhoades, campaign manager for Mr. Romney’s failed presidential bid.

Mr. Rhoades said at the summit that Chinese hackers dug into the Romney campaign’s files, combing through the policy department’s white papers that he joked he had not read himself.

“They wanted to see where Mitt’s head was, where he was going, where his policy was going, and they never put the information out, which to be honest they probably would have been doing us a favor putting some policy out there,” Mr. Rhoades said at the summit, sponsored by the nonprofit Defending Digital Campaigns.

In 2019, Mr. Rhoades helped form the nonprofit Defending Digital Campaigns team to provide candidates access to cybersecurity tools regardless of their political affiliation. Some Democrats cared but no Republicans initially did, he said at the summit.

Concerns about digital hacks interfering in elections have grown much more widespread.

Google is preparing to roll out new tools to assist candidates for electoral office in the 2024 elections, according to Dave Vorhaus, who runs Google’s Global Elections Integrity team.

Mr. Vorhaus said Google’s new tools will be revealed at a later date, but the Big Tech giant’s goal is to enable campaigns to do everything needed for security in one swipe.

• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.

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