Cast your mind back to November 2020, and one of the most turbulent presidential elections the U.S. has ever seen. It was a campaign defined by claim and counterclaim, by widespread accusations of voter fraud and ballot malpractice. In short, it was chaos.  

And in the eye of the storm lay Maricopa County. The fourth-largest county in the US with over 4.4 million citizens, Maricopa County found itself at the center of the news cycle during that period, with mis- and disinformation about voter fraud, corruption and spoiled ballots in the county all over social media.  

In a tight race, every vote counted – and as a result, adversaries were intent on throwing as much doubt onto the validity of the election result as possible. And for Lester Godsey, Chief Information Security Officer over at Maricopa County, dealing with the rising tide of dis- and misinformation was – and remains – a daily battle. 

“Whether it’s nation states, hacktivists or opportunists, the threat landscape for cybersecurity professionals has never been more varied,” he told an audience of senior security leaders at the recent GDS Security Summit. “Chaos is the primary aim. They are looking to sow discontent, divide the population and create opposing factions. And social media is an increasingly effective means of doing that.” 

Social Media on the Rise 

According to Pew Research, 71% of Americans get their news content from social media. The way we access and interact with news has evolved. But with the blurring of facts, falsehoods and opinion never more prevalent, the truth has never been harder to define. “Truth doesn’t necessarily rise to the top; it doesn’t necessarily go viral,” says Godsey. “Anyone’s post can be amplified to millions, whether that post is accurate or not, and whether it was shared innocently or purposefully.” 

Indeed, in a world of increasingly polarized perspectives, people determine their own truth, and consume only that which reinforces that outlook. Truth is no longer a necessary litmus for what we share online. 

And as a result, says Godsey, adversaries are increasingly exploiting that tendency to do us – and our information security systems – harm. “Social media is being used to harass staff and officials. It’s being used to recruit people with similar ideologies. Bad actors are using it to coordinate their efforts, and as a logistics and research forum,” he explains. “And they are using it to great effect, because it’s often easier to hack minds than computers.” 

Combating the Threat

So how do you combat that threat? For Godsey it’s a daily task. And it starts with understanding the difference between misinformation and disinformation. “It’s defined by intent. Disinformation is about deliberately causing harm, whereas misinformation is unknowingly doing so,” he says.  

However, that line is not always clear cut. “We had a campaign during the election where a post suggested the use of sharpie pens on a ballot paper would invalidate the vote – when in actual fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. And while we believe the original post may’ve been malicious – created with the intent to sow fear, distrust and uncertainty – it was most likely shared by people who just wanted to ensure that every vote counted. They had good intentions. It’s an interesting example of how easily and rapidly a small disinformation campaign can escalate into a mass misinformation one.” 

Other threats are more overt. “We saw nation-state influence on a third-party platform for driving public engagement around the use of government services,” continues Godsey. “We discovered that Russia had used bots to auto-register tens of thousands of accounts, using this social media tool, in order to try and influence the result of the election. Fortunately, we were able to work with the vendor and our federal agency partners to address it before it became an issue.” 

Information Systems Security 

So, with threats multiplying on a daily basis, what does the solution to dealing with widespread dis- and misinformation look like moving forwards? 

For Godsey, it starts with organizational readiness. “We changed our operational approach, both to incorporate social media as a source of intelligence, and to recognize the threat that it poses,” he explains. “We provide daily and weekly management briefs, looking at what’s trending in social media and news in general.” 

The team are also leveraging tools initially designed around capturing brand sentiment to understand positive, negative and neutral chatter related to Maricopa County. “As a result, we are able to determine where we think our risks are at any given time,” says Godsey. “These could relate to social media, geopolitical tensions, local news, other initiatives and events – anything that might be relevant – and allow us to update our incident response protocols accordingly.” 

Another area Godsey’s team is looking at is around the use of social media as a research tool. “It’s increasingly being used to collect information on individuals. And we have to employ the same tactics when it comes to discovering what those bad actors know. For instance, shortly after the 2020 election we appointed a new official to the post of County Recorder. Within weeks, our special-ops team was able to discover a 30-page dossier that had been compiled on that individual via a QAnon research forum. So we’re leveraging social media monitoring on a daily basis to deal with those kinds of threats.” 

The Value of Partnership 

Finally, says Godsey, it’s about partnership. If your information security team and your communications team don’t have a good working relationship, then now is the perfect time to start building one. “Both teams should be feeding each other information as it relates to their respective missions,” he says. “Intel sharing is critical – and that also counts for external partners and organizations, too.” 

The threats posed by dis- and misinformation are both real and growing. Perception is reality. So, if your organization cares about brand sentiment – if it cares about customer faith in your organization, about trust – then social media matters. Especially when it comes to your security teams. 

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