{"id":261536,"date":"2026-06-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/hackers-are-already-laying-groundwork-to-disrupt-the-2026-midterms-research-says\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:55:23","slug":"hackers-are-already-laying-groundwork-to-disrupt-the-2026-midterms-research-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/hackers-are-already-laying-groundwork-to-disrupt-the-2026-midterms-research-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackers are already laying groundwork to disrupt the 2026 midterms, research says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hackers are already laying groundwork to disrupt the 2026 midterms, research says<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/06\/hackers-are-already-laying-groundwork-disrupt-2026-midterms-research-says\/413874\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-01 06:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.nextgov.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Hackers are already preparing for the 2026 midterms, with a new report warning that campaigns, fundraising platforms, public websites and local governments could face a wave of phishing, credential theft, artificial intelligence-generated deception and foreign influence activity.<\/p>\n

The findings, produced by cybersecurity firm Check Point, do not point to voting machines as the most likely near-term target, but instead warn that attackers are more likely to exploit infrastructure around elections \u2014 like campaign accounts and fundraising platforms \u2014 to steal credentials, impersonate trusted organizations, disrupt public information or fuel doubts about the nation\u2019s electoral process.<\/p>\n

The conclusions come as the Trump administration has pursued a more aggressive role in election administration, including through a March executive order aimed at tightening rules around mail-in voting and voter eligibility. The U.S. Postal Service has also proposed a rule that would require states to submit lists of voters receiving mail ballots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report also comes amid scrutiny of the intelligence community\u2019s posture toward election threats under outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. ODNI recently named two officials to coordinate the intelligence community\u2019s election-threat mission for the 2026 cycle.<\/p>\n

The firm does not address the administration directly. The assessment is notable, however, because it points to AI and digital threats as more immediate election security concerns, rather than the voting-procedure issues that have dominated talking points from the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, the most significant 2026 risks center on the trusted accounts, platforms, services, and information channels that election-related organizations rely on to operate and maintain public trust, with election-adjacent systems presenting the more immediate source of operational exposure,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

Check Point also said it observed sustained election-related…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hackers are already laying groundwork to disrupt the 2026 midterms, research says https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/06\/hackers-are-already-laying-groundwork-disrupt-2026-midterms-research-says\/413874\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261537,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.nextgov.com\/media\/img\/cd\/2026\/05\/31\/GettyImages_2182438565\/open-graph.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,20,24,31,25],"class_list":["post-261536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cybersecurity","tag-exploit","tag-phishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261538,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261536\/revisions\/261538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}