Election Cyber Gaffes: Which Party's Has Been Worse?

Still three months from the November presidential election, Democrats haven’t had a lot of fun in the cyber realm.

Arizona-based Identity protection services company IDT911 listed the top five cybersecurity gaffes this election cycle, and if you’re keeping score, Democrats are getting hit harder on the cybersecurity front.

The company-picked worst cybersecurity gaffe is undoubtedly the Democratic National Committee’s breach of 20,000 emails and documents – purportedly by Russian intelligence groups – that led to leadership changes before and after the Democratic National Convention.

Fallout from that breach continues, as does blowback former Secretary of State – and now Democratic nominee – Hillary Clinton’s use of private email while she served in President Obama’s cabinet. Clinton, an iconic texter and meme goddess, avoided prosecution for her use of private email but was nonetheless called “negligent” by FBI Director James Comey.

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Clinton’s campaign also found its way on the dubious list by asking potential running mates to hand over passwords for social media accounts belonging to them and their families, according to Politico. Handing over passwords to social media accounts followed by millions of people is one of the last things a high-profile figure should do. All it takes is one staffer to make a mountain out of a dumb tweet, as the Justice Department recently found out.

Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has few tech scene fans and once said he’d “shut down the internet” to deal with ISIS, only appears negatively once on this list: when Trump hotels were hit with a second credit card breach in April. Hack the Donald’s hotels once? Shame on Trump’s information security team. Hack him twice? Well, someone might be getting fired.

Trump also appears a second time on the list, although it was the DNC’s gaffe again, not his. Russian hackers who breached DNC systems in early 2016 pilfered a 200-page opposition-research dossier on Trump. The document included sections titled “Trump is only loyal to himself,” “Trump is a liar,” and “Trump has repeatedly offended minorities with demeaning comments.”