Alert
Last Updated June 8, 2017
Consistent with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s commitment to providing state and local election administrators with the information they need to ensure secure, accessible and accurate elections, the commission is providing the following evergreen reminders and recommendations to state and local election officials:
- Election officials should work with their IT officials and their Secretary of State’s offices to routinely review systems and logs for possible malicious emails and other irregular activity.
- Election officials should monitor and actively seek security updates from state and national law enforcement and intelligence sources, including the DHS and FBI. The EAC will provide these updates as we receive them.
- Election officials should follow election best practices by ensuring voting systems & corresponding EMS are NOT connected to the internet.
- Election officials should review security protocols with all staff and issue reminders to exercise caution when opening links and attachments, even those that appear to come from known senders.
- Visit the EAC’s “Election Security Preparedness” page for information and checklists to guide security efforts, including:
- Considerations for Implementing Voting Systems with COTS Products
- Checklist - Securing Voter Registration Data
- Checklist - Securing Election Night Reporting Systems
- Ransomware and What to Do About It
- Ten Things to Know About Selecting a Voting System
- Ten Things to Know About Managing Aging Voting Systems
- Cyber Incident Response Best Practices
- State and local officials should also review the EAC’s newly released STARTING POINT: U.S. Election System as Critical Infrastructure.
- If you find something of interest or have questions or concerns, please contact the FBI cyber watch group at 1-855-292-3937 or [email protected] or DHS at [email protected]. Election officials can also contact their local FBI field office.
As always, if you have specific questions or the EAC can provide assistance in any way, please do not hesitate to contact us at 301-563-3919