MULTIPLE THREATS TO ELECTION SYSTEMS PROMPT US CYBERSECURITY AGENCY TO BOOST COOPERATION WITH STATES

The nation’s cybersecurity agency launched a program aimed at boosting election security in the states, shoring up support for local offices and hoping to provide reassurance to voters that this year’s presidential elections will be safe and accurate.

Officials with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are introducing the program this week to the National Association of State Election Directors and National Association of Secretaries of State, which are meeting in the nation’s capital.

For state and local election officials, the list of security challenges keeps growing. Among them: potential cyberattacks waged by foreign governments, criminal ransomware gangs attacking computer systems and the persistence of election misinformation that has led to harassment of election officials and undermined public confidence.

Just in the past few weeks, AI-generated robocalls surfaced in New Hampshire before the state’s presidential primary and a cyberattack affecting the local government in Fulton County, Georgia, has created challenges for its election office.

The prospect of hostile governments abroad attacking election systems has been a particular concern this year for the agency. Eric Goldstein, CISA’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, described “a really difficult cybersecurity environment” that includes “extraordinary advances by nation-state adversaries China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.”