Stay informed on election security with the latest updates on cyber threats, data protection, and integrity in the democratic process.
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Background for this topic.
Election is a legally governed process for choosing public officials or deciding a question through voting, with rules for registration, ballot creation, voting, counting, and certification. Its cybersecurity scope includes the digital systems supporting those stages—not only voting devices, but voter-registration databases, election-management systems, poll-worker accounts, result-reporting networks, and public information services.
Security priorities are preserving vote and result integrity, keeping essential services available, and protecting voter and worker information from unnecessary exposure. Material risks include unauthorized changes to ballot definitions or tallies, compromise of privileged accounts, disruption of reporting systems, and exploitation of software or network vulnerabilities. Defenses include least-privilege access, multifactor authentication, network separation, tested backups, vulnerability management, and paper records or other independent evidence that supports verification. Election security also requires documented procedures for detecting, containing, and correcting incidents without undermining lawful certification.
The president revoked the former CISA director's security clearance, half a decade after Krebs challenged right-wing election disinformation, prompting his eventual resignation.
Cybersecurity Expert Sees Retribution for Stating 2020 Election Results LegitimateChris Krebs, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during President Donald Trump's first administration, resigned from his private-sector job to fight what he characterized as a retaliatory probe, designed to "punish dissent," ordered by his former boss.
President Trump last week revoked security clearances for Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) who was fired by Trump after declaring the 2020 election the most secure in U.S. history. The White House memo, which also suspended clearances for other security professionals at Krebs's employer SentinelOne, comes as CISA is facing huge funding and staffing cuts.