Romania’s security chiefs confirm election cyberattacks, request TikTok probe

BUCHAREST — Romania’s top national security officials said today they had found cyberattacks intended to influence the fairness of the country’s first presidential election round on Sunday.
They didn’t say when the cyberattacks took place or what exactly they targeted, but the officials suggested Russia might have been involved.
“Romania, together with other countries on NATO’s Eastern Flank, has become a priority for the hostile actions of some state and non-state actors, particularly the Russian Federation, which has a growing interest to influence Romanian society’s public agenda and social cohesion,” the Supreme Council of Defense of the Country said in a statement. 
It wasn’t immediately clear what kind of information had become available since Monday, when President Klaus Iohannis’ office said he hadn’t received any intelligence about potential foreign election interference.
The Supreme Council — chaired by Iohannis, the outgoing president — includes the prime minister, the defense minister and the leaders of the intelligence services.
Iohannis called a meeting Wednesday following stunning results in the first round of the presidential election, which saw little-known independent ultranationalist Călin Georgescu win, edging out Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who didn’t make it to the Dec. 8 runoff.
The Supreme Council also called out the video-sharing platform TikTok, which it said gave preferential treatment to one candidate. 
While the Supreme Council didn’t name Georgescu, its statement clearly referred to him. TikTok didn’t identify Georgescu as a political candidate and didn’t mark his content with a specific election code, as required by Romanian law, the Supreme Council said.
While the other candidates were marked as such and their videos filtered, the same didn’t happen for Georgescu, which significantly increased his visibility, it said.
The Supreme Council asked law enforcement authorities to further investigate TikTok for violating Romanian election law.
The statement adds to a tense political situation in Romania and might add reasons to a demand in front of the Constitutional Court to nullify Sunday’s election. 
The Constitutional Court demanded a ballot recount earlier today and will meet again Friday to consider the request to cancel the first presidential election round.