In typical midterm election years, political campaigns wait until after Labor Day to go all out with advertising and events.

But nothing about the 2018 election campaigns is shaping up to be ordinary.

That includes the misinformation campaigns.

After facing sustained criticism for their failure to get ahead of Russian meddling before the 2016 presidential elections, technology companies are scrambling to avoid the same mistakes.

So far, their efforts have been an alarming reminder that our foreign enemies aren’t hesitating to influence our democracy — and that they now regard internet influence campaigns as particularly effective ways to do so.

Last week alone, Microsoft announced that it had uncovered new Russian hacking attempts against U.S. political institutions. Microsoft detected and seized fake domains created by the hacking group, which it described as having ties to the Russian government.

The websites spoofed a pair of conservative think tanks — the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute — which are known for their democracy-promotion efforts and their criticism of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

Microsoft also discovered websites imitating the U.S. Senate.

“Broadening cyberthreats to both U.S. political parties make clear that the tech sector will need to do more to help protect the democratic process,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, wrote in a blog post. “In the face of this continuing activity, we must work on the assumption that these attacks will broaden further.”

Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter discovered a startling amount of unusual activity on their networks this week, too.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced it had discovered a new political influence campaign that appears to have originated out of Russia and Iran. Facebook has stated that the Iranian accounts it discovered were the work of “Liberty Front Press,” which was advancing an anti-President Trump, anti-Israeli message.

The social network removed 652 fake accounts and pages that were attempting to sow discontent around divisive social issues — including race, gun control and the environment.

This is similar to the strategy used by Russian hackers ahead of the 2016 elections. That year, Facebook (and Instagram, one of its properties) was the hackers’ favorite social network for sowing confusion and inflammatory content.

This is the second time in less than a month that Facebook has identified and removed this kind of activity on its platform. On July 31, the company announced it had removed 32 pages and accounts that were involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

In a blog post, the company noted that those who had set up these fake accounts had done a better job of concealing their identities than past Russian hackers had.

The final alarm came from Twitter on Tuesday evening, when the company announced it had suspended nearly 300 accounts for “coordinated manipulation.” The company believes the accounts originated in Iran.

Russia and Iran are seeking to advance different U.S. political narratives in accordance with their own national interests. What’s important about the two nations’ activities isn’t which U.S. political party they would like to see win in November. It’s the fact that they are attacking our country.

To their credit, U.S. technology companies are responding with more transparency to these attacks than they did in 2016. But when it comes to the defense of our democracy, Americans should not be forced to depend on the whims of the tech giants.

Last week must serve Congress as a warning to get serious about cybersecurity. Our enemies feel like they have little to lose from trying to manipulate our elections. Congress needs to prove them wrong.