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| Louisiana is under cyber attacks before the elections |
In the past few weeks, the Louisiana National Guard has been urged to end a series of cyberattacks targeting small government offices across the state.
This highlights the cyber threats facing local governments on the eve of the 2020 US presidential election.
The situation in Louisiana came on the heels of a similar case in Washington state, where hackers infected some state agencies with a type of malware in order to request ransomware.
Senior US security officials have also warned that ransomware poses a threat to the US elections.
It is not clear if the hackers intend to crack down on the Louisiana electoral system or if they want a ransom.
These attacks are ringing alarm bells because they can cause potential harm and because there is evidence of a complex hacking organization involved.
Experts investigating the Louisiana incident have found that the tools used by the hackers were previously linked to an organization with ties to the North Korean government.
The tool, called KimJongRat, is described as a RAS Trojan, or RAT, used to break into computer networks.
A cybersecurity analyst who reviewed the tool said that some of the tool's code was posted online where hackers could copy the code, making North Korean participation insecure.
The cyber attack was halted before the massive damage occurred, though officials from several government agencies in northern Louisiana managed to sneak into the scene.
A source said: The obvious goal of hackers is to infect computers with ransomware, but it is difficult to determine. Because the attack stopped early.
A previous 2013 cybersecurity research report found that "KimJongRat" was written in Korean code and mentioned the North Korean leader's family.
US officials are competing with tech companies such as Microsoft over whether hackers are communicating with foreign intelligence agencies in Russia, Iran, China and North Korea.
Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt said in a recent interview that most of the criminal ransomware programs are run by multiple criminal groups, and we are working hard to understand who they are, how they are organized, and who they work with.
Microsoft is part of a select group of cybersecurity companies that can help respond to the Washington attack and provide free cybersecurity protection software to local authorities until the end of the election.