As U.S. citizens headed to the polls, cyber threat activity against election-related websites was unusually high. One of the most prominent attack types observed this Election Day was business logic attacks—a complex threat that manipulates the intended workflow of applications, often without triggering security alarms. Business logic attacks are designed to exploit the legitimate processes within a website, such as manipulating user registration flows, circumventing rate limits, or overwhelming resources allocated for specific functions. These attacks exploit features within the system to achieve unintended effects.
Common Types of Business Logic Attacks on Election Day
The types of business logic attacks targeting these election-related sites vary widely, but generally fall into a few categories:
- Election and Voter Information Gathering: Attackers target URLs that display critical voter information such as polling locations, registration details, district information, and absentee ballot tracking. By probing these endpoints, attackers can gather information on voter demographics, polling logistics, or potentially sensitive details like election history or application statuses. Although this data may seem non-sensitive at first, aggregating it can lead to privacy concerns or enable further, targeted attacks on the election process. Automated scraping of these URLs can also strain server resources, causing delays or limiting access for legitimate users.
- Credential Stuffing and Account Takeovers: Attackers may attempt to exploit login functionalities to test large sets of credentials, aiming to gain access to individual voter information. Even if this data isn’t directly used to impact online votes, any perceived compromise can lead to significant distrust in the security of election processes and its results.
- Data Leakage: Attackers target URLs containing system data files, such as .env files, configuration files, and backup directories, aiming to expose sensitive application settings and credentials. In this case, we mainly saw simple bots conducting automated scanning across election-related sites- not a direct case of business logic, but still closely related, as it enables attackers to uncover sensitive system information that can be leveraged in more sophisticated business logic attacks.
These attacks have several intended consequences, but mainly aimed to harvest voter data information. We’ve seen many attacks like this target voting-, election-, and polling-related sites, primarily based in Sun Belt swing states.
Protecting Against Business Logic Attacks
Mitigating these threats requires a combination of detection capabilities, including protection against security misconfigurations, specific vulnerabilities, and advanced bots to identify and block malicious behavior. Some immediate steps include:
- Enhanced Traffic Monitoring: With events that will likely have high traffic, having layered monitoring for unusual behavior patterns can help detect and stop potential business logic attacks.
- API Rate Limiting: By implementing stricter rate limits on API requests, sites can minimize the effectiveness of automated scraping and overload attacks.
- Behavioral Analysis and Bot Mitigation: Detecting deviations in user behavior, such as repeated location lookups or abnormal access patterns, can help separate legitimate user actions from malicious activities.
- Stricter Authentication Measures: Employing multifactor authentication (MFA) and CAPTCHA for user-facing portals adds an additional layer of security, reducing the likelihood of automated account takeover attempts.
Maintaining Trust in Election Security
The integrity of election-related sites is crucial for public trust. Election Day reminds us of the importance of securing not only data, but also the workflows and processes that drive these critical applications. As cyber threats become increasingly complex, proactive measures and agile responses will be essential for election-related organizations to maintain trust and keep voters informed throughout the day.
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