Federal cybersecurity agency details threats to 2024 election

DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Media Iowa Capitol Bureau) – Officials with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency say the election system has never been more secure, but at the same time, the threats they see have never been more sophisticated.

Jen Doğulu, CISA Director“No matter who you vote for, you can be sure that your vote will be considered cast,” he said.

Voting machines are not connected to the internet, and 97 percent of American registered voters will have a paper record they can verify when voting, Easterly says. He says that since 2020, election officials across the country have increased both physical and cybersecurity measures to protect themselves from being compromised.

“These include pre-election testing of equipment and post-election audits to ensure accuracy,” Easterly said.

In Iowa, officials argue the election will be safe. The state requires photo identification and uses paper ballots.

Additionally, the state’s vote tabulators are not connected to the internet, so bad actors can’t tamper with the results. These tabulators were tested before early voting began, and a statewide audit will be conducted after the election.

Easterly says foreign adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran have launched cyber attacks on election sites, but they cannot disrupt or influence election results.

Easterly adds that these countries are engaging in misinformation campaigns. He says these countries are “spoofing” or imitating real news sites like the Washington Post and Fox News. They post fake or misleading stories about voter fraud, dead voters, and non-citizen voting on their sites and on social media.

Easterly says the goal of these countries is to reduce people’s trust in the electoral system and the government and to try to divide people.

Cait Conley, Senior Advisor and Election Security and Resilience Leader at CISAsays election officials are still seeing threats from conspiracy theorists who mistakenly believe there was widespread fraud in the last presidential election

“Calls for attacks targeting election officials in their homes put them, their families, and first responders at risk. “We have also seen calls made to government facilities, such as bomb hoaxes, and letters containing hazardous materials such as fentanyl being mailed to election offices,” Conley said.

Easterly says there may be some problems on election day, as is often the case, but election officials are preparing for potential disruptions and how to resolve them.

“There will be hiccups. There will be outages. A polling place may open late because someone forgot their key to the polling place. Power may be out of power due to a storm, so the polling place may have to be moved. An election office may be attacked by ransomware. The good news is that this type of “As devastating as the events are, they will not impact Americans’ ability to vote or for those votes to be counted as cast.” said Conley.

Watch the entire news conference

CISA officials say the election system has never been more secure, but also the threats they see have never been more sophisticated.

both CISA And Iowa Secretary of State’s office Ensure the establishment of websites containing information on how elections are managed and secured.

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Conner Hendricks covers state government and politics for Gray Media-owned stations in Iowa. Email him/her [email protected]; and follow him on Facebook Conner HendricksTV or on X/Twitter @ConnerReports.