Disturbing New Trend | How Hackers Are Influencing Elections

In recent times a surprisingly large number of leaked documents and hackers have come forward proving that several elections have been deliberately manipulated by electronic means. From voter fraud allegations in Arizona to Presidential elections in Columbia, in our digital age, cyber espionage for political gain is becoming a disturbing new trend undermining democracy worldwide.

A multitude of reports came to light last week, all covering a single hacker whom has stepped forward to reveal how specific elected officials hired him to manipulate federal elections in their favor. His name is Andrés Sepúlveda and over the course of 8 years claims to have “hacked elections” in 9 separate Latin American countries including  Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, México, Panamá, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Honduras.

Sepúlveda is currently serving a 10 years prison sentence for related crime but in an exclusive interview granted to Bloomberg News last week went on to say “My job was to do actions of dirty war and psychological operations, black propaganda, rumours – the whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see.” To do this he took a two pronged approach. First he he would hack into web sites, steal information and install malware/keyloggers to record information from political rivals including speeches and event preparations. Second he would use social media to post deliberate miss information in an effort to artificially stir up rumors, emotions, conspiracies and get people riled up/angry over certain issues.

Sepúlveda admits he did not work alone explaining how he was able to hired a team of 7-15 other hacktivists to work along side him. As for his budget, Sepúlveda claims to have offered a base rate of 12,000$/month for his ‘standard package’ but also offered a ‘premium package’ at a rate of 20,000/month. The hacker claims to have received more than 600,000$ from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto alone.

How Sepúlveda Physically Manipulated Public Opinion Before Election

• Break into email databases, steal the information and spam deliberate misinformation to the recipients list
• Created thousands of social media accounts which he operated for well over a year to “make them seem legitimate”. He would then use these accounts to spam false and/or negative statements to the social media accounts of political rivals
• Operated a team of over 30,000 Twitter bots to bump up the “likes” and “followers” making his clients and their policies appear more popular than they really were
• Generated Meme’s aimed at mocking political opponents
• Wrote a software program entitles “Social Media Predator” which managed to fake a multitude of other Twitter Accounts
• Created fake Youtube video’s to troll candidates by expressing fake/exaggerated outrage over public affairs
• Hacked in rival politicians social media accounts and posted allegations of fraud and the like to stir up conspiracy talks and make candidates seem petty or unreasonable
• Set up automated computers designed specifically to repeatedly call databases of tens of thousands of voters the night before an election.
• Created aliases impersonating extremist homosexuals whom were outraged by gay rights in order to alienate candidates on this polarizing issue – burying important policy debate on other issues for other candidates in the process

“When I realized that people believe what the internet says more then reality I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.” Read The Full Interview Here: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/

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