Hacking Democracy - Analyzing and Countering Threat Actors' Modi Operandi

One of the most fundamental pillars of democracy is the right to vote. Impeding on the ability to cast one’s vote or tampering with elections in any way is - rightfully so - perceived as a hostile act par excellence. To sustain trust in the system and integrity of the results, it is imperative to protect the electoral process against any domestic and foreign meddling. Political parties, voters and campaign officials however have come to increasingly depend on IT systems to facilitate their part in the democratic process. In order to develop mechanisms to protect the (digital) democratic process however, we first need to understand the ways adversaries would try to meddle with it. One of the methods that threat actors use to interfere with the democratic process through the cyber domain is hacking which is not necessarily innately dangerous to the democratic process. Oftentimes it needs to be paired with a certain technique (e. g. a disinformation campaign or leaking of stolen information) to achieve an effect on a target. Developing a framework to categorize the modes of operation - the modi operandi - of threat actors helps to define and understand their intentions for the geopolitical space.