Federal Inspectors General have the crucial task of agency oversight, often handling that job for large agencies while operating on relatively small budgets. To keep up with their responsibilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IG offices have had to leverage new technologies – and old technologies in new ways – over the past year-plus, IG officials explained today. […]
The Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council – whose leadership spans Federal, state, and local government election officials – applauded inter-government cooperation on implementing cybersecurity safeguards in the 2020 election cycle, and pledged to use lessons learned going forward to improve election security and resiliency. […]
The chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) this week urged the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government for dependable Federal funding to ensure election security ahead of the 2022 election. […]
With one of the most abnormal years of our lifetimes coming to an end, we look back at the top Fed IT moments of 2020. In a year with both a pandemic and an election, the government had to change the way it worked, ensure trust in election outcomes, and modernize on the fly. […]
Few things seem to unite Republicans and Democrats these days, but President Trump’s abrupt firing of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs seems to be one of the issues bucking that trend. President Trump fired Krebs via his Twitter account on Tuesday evening, prompting a mix of outrage and disapproval from members of Congress […]
Senior officials with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said this morning that reported county-level problems with voting systems on election day are likely due to technical glitches, and not cyber attacks. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) component remain on high alert during Election Day, and see no evidence of any malicious attacks on voting infrastructure that would change any vote totals, officials from both agencies said today. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Inspector General’s Office (OIG) is giving credit to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) efforts to improve election security nationwide, but said in a new report that CISA still has a lot of work to do on that front, particularly in areas involving physical security of election infrastructure. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs reiterated late Tuesday that foreign hackers won’t be able to change votes cast in the U.S. elections next month, and debuted a new CISA web page that provides advice about how citizens can deal with attempts to spread misinformation about the elections. […]
Bob Kolasky, Director of the National Risk Management Center (NRMC) at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), today pronounced state and local election authorities “well positioned” to conduct secure elections next month. […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said today that his agency has not identified any threat that could change vote tallies in next month’s elections, but did say citizens should expect that the final results of all elections may not be clear by the conclusion of election night, November 3. […]
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a warning on Oct. 2 to help the public recognize and avoid spoofed election-related internet domains and email accounts during the 2020 election year. […]
The FBI’s Boston Division has issued guidance to help the general public guard against foreign influence and disinformation campaigns in advance of the 2020 election. […]
In a new move to secure the 2020 election, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is letting Federal government employees serve as poll workers on election day – an effort election security officials are praising as critical. […]
The FBI in conjunction with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a public service announcement to raise awareness about the potential for disinformation around the results of the elections, especially in the period after voting has occurred. […]
FBI Director Chris Wray said on Sept. 16 that his agency hasn’t seen any attempts thus far by foreign actors to attack the U.S. voter registration databases in the run-up to the November elections, or any attempt to tamper with vote counts. […]
Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, today expressed confidence in the country’s ability to conduct safe and secure elections in November, while also warning that foreign influence operations pose an ongoing challenge for the U.S. […]
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the United States has “made improvements since 2016” in election security, but pointed the finger at Congress for not doing even more to secure elections. […]
With the 2020 General Election a mere eight weeks away, election officials at both the state and Federal level are preparing for the final sprint to Nov. 3. […]
The Election Assistance Commission partnered with the nation’s lead cyber agency to aid election officials in prioritizing and managing risks to election infrastructure through an online tool. […]
Following Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s decision to cancel scheduled election security briefings, Democratic House leaders wrote to his office asking to reschedule the regular, in-depth briefings instead of substituting them with written reports. […]
The nation’s lead election security agency in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it has not seen any attacks on voter registration databases or voting systems this year. […]
The Cyber Navigators Act, H.R. 8011, would provide additional election-specific IT support to provide help monitoring systems and digesting data from cybersecurity information sharing and analysis centers, said Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., one of the bills cosponsors. […]
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen urged Americans this week to participate fully in the democratic process and realize that the fear of “malign influence” on elections are as old as the country itself. […]
The Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) – which includes members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and informs how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works with state and local authorities to protect election systems critical infrastructure – declared on August 20 that the election community is fully prepared to handle the final stretch leading up to the 2020 general elections. […]
Cybereason, a Boston-based cybersecurity firm, has held a series of election security events over the past couple of years in order to provide law enforcement with opportunities to think proactively about ways to ensure that elections are safe and secure. They held their latest event August 19 by Zoom, including officials from the FBI and CISA. […]
A top U.S. intelligence community leader said today the IC doubts the ability of U.S. adversaries to manipulate the results of U.S. general election voting in any widespread way, while warning that exploits may be attempted against election infrastructure with a goal of interfering with voting processes, stealing data, and casting doubt on the democratic process. […]
A Department of State program is offering up to $10 million to help identify bad actors, individuals who are working with or for a foreign government with the purpose of interfering with U.S. elections through certain cyber acts. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released its Mail-in Voting in 2020 Infrastructure Risk Assessment to help with risk management of critical election systems. […]
To keep the 2020 election secure, experts at the Brookings Institution this week called for further efforts to combat the spread of domestic election disinformation, and instituting paper ballots. […]