In the wake of suspicions around a 2016 electronic poll book system malfunction in Durham County, N.C., senators are pressing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take quicker action on election security incidents and share more information with the public. […]
The House Appropriations Committee’s Fiscal Services and General Government fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget draft includes $600 million to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to aid states in modernizing election systems and administering Federal elections. […]
The Association for Computing Machinery asked the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to adopt policy that disallows internet connections to voting equipment. […]
On Monday, Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., announced a bill to provide funding to states to safeguard voting systems from cyberattacks. […]
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) said it will spend $2.5 million to support efforts to provide cybersecurity toolkits for election offices, community organizations, and journalists in preparation for the 2020 presidential election. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) most experienced cybersecurity secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, resigned from her position yesterday, with an effective departure date of April 10. […]
Senate Democrats took steps to tackle election security this week, first by looking to investigate voting machines, and then by unanimously signing off on a Senate version of the House’s H.R. 1, the “For the People Act” yesterday. […]
In another effort from Congress to expand transparency in U.S. election systems after, Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. announced today that they will reintroduce their Election Systems Integrity Act. […]
The House passed the For the People Act, or H.R. 1, on Friday with a party-line vote of 234-193. […]
Joseph Cuffari, the Trump administration’s nominee to become Department of Homeland Security inspector general, told senators at his confirmation hearing today that he doesn’t have any experience in election security issues, but is ready to dive in. […]
The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice submitted a joint report on election interference in the 2018 elections to President Trump, finding no evidence of any meddling with “a material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/campaign infrastructure used in the 2018 midterm elections for the United States Congress.” […]
On their second day in charge of the House, Democrats debuted H.R. 1, the For The People Act, which features a wide range of election security and modernization measures, including cybersecurity standards for voting machines, an election security bug bounty program, and a requirement for online voter registration. […]
The Defense Department is lending assistance to the Department of Homeland Security as DHS works to protect election infrastructure in the run-up to next week’s mid-term congressional elections, said Ed Wilson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy, on Tuesday at the Symantec 2018 Government Symposium. […]
Thomas Hicks, commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, said today that EAC has developed a set of voluntary voting system guidelines to aid local election authorities, but the commission currently lacks a quorum to vote on the standards and distribute the guidance to localities. […]
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, alongside the Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Homeland Security, released a joint statement today that expresses their concern over election interference and calls identification and prevention of interference a “top priority for the Federal government.” […]
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said today that DHS’ National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) will provide a resource center on Election Day that will actively respond to threats of cyber intrusion when voters go to the polls on November 6. […]
President Trump today issued an Executive Order that creates a structure to evaluate whether any foreign actors are attempting to influence U.S. elections and authorizes the government to impose “appropriate and meaningful sanctions against foreign individuals and entities determined to have engaged in election interference.” […]
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) is the latest in a string of organizations to release its recommendations on how Federal, state, and local officials can best secure U.S. elections, including the use of paper-ballot components. […]
Bob Kolasky, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recently created National Risk Management Center (NRMC), said today that DHS is taking action this month to boost the level of communication and data exchange among state and local election officials in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November. […]
Email authentication technologies provider Valimail said today it will provide its email anti-fraud service free of charge to state boards of election, voting system vendors, and major-party U.S. election campaigns. […]
The Election Assistance Commission on Tuesday released most state budget data for Help America Vote Act (HAVA) grants, which revealed that a majority of the $380 million in grant money is being devoted to cybersecurity and new voting equipment. […]
The Department of Homeland Security on Aug. 13-15 hosted “Tabletop the Vote 2018: DHS’ National Election Cyber Exercise,” which invited vendors and Federal, state and local election officials to participate in election security preparation. […]
Cybersecurity solutions provider Cylance today announced that it is offering free artificial intelligence-based antivirus software “to support all 2018 U.S. political campaigns” in the wake of pervasive election security concerns across the Federal government. […]
A new survey from Venafi shows a very high level of concern about cybersecurity among election administrators, with 93 percent voicing concern about cyber-attacks targeting election data and infrastructure. […]
The zero trust model of IT security has a wide range of applications from protecting government data to helping to secure election infrastructure, panelists said at the Akamai Government Forum on June 14. […]
In a bipartisan effort, Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is looking to protect elections from cyberattacks and propaganda. The Cybersecurity Campaign Playbook, released today, gives campaign officials simple, actionable information to better secure campaign information from adversaries attempting to use cyberattacks. […]
The United States needs to invest more resources in the security of election systems, Cook County (Ill.) Director of Elections Noah Praetz told the Election Assistance Commission. […]
The designation of the nation’s election systems as critical infrastructure will not infringe upon state and local authority to run elections. In a recent memo to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Members, Ranking Member Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., relayed communications from the Department of Homeland Security that reiterated that fact. […]
The personal details of nearly 200 million voters were left exposed online by data firm Deep Root Analytics, which was working on behalf of the Republican National Committee, according to UpGuard, which reported the exposure on June 19 and characterized it as “the largest known exposure of voter information in history.” […]
There is no evidence that Russian hacking activities altered the results of the 2016 presidential election. But there is ample evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence services are now waging a massive information operations campaign targeting Western democracies. […]