DHS, states drill on election security
Tabletop training helps states, election officials and DHS see how election cybersecurity detection and response plans might work.
With the 2018 midterm elections only a couple of months away and the threat of voting system hacks looming, the Department of Homeland Security completed a days-long exercise with state and local governments to demonstrate how they might handle a cyber attack.
On Aug. 15, the Department of Homeland Security said it had completed a three-day "National Exercise on Election Security." The "first-of-its-kind" tabletop exercise, the agency said in a statement, simulated scenarios of voter system interference to get participants talking potential impacts to voter confidence, voting operations and the integrity of elections.
The training program drew representatives from 44 state governments and the District of Columbia, the Election Assistance Commission, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command.
The exercise showed the groups how DHS activates and operates its shared threat data and response capabilities, the agency said. It also illustrated how threat information from the federal government and the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) could be leveraged to defend systems as well as the processes DHS uses to identify threats or incidents.
The agency said the exercise also demonstrated how state election officials can ask federal agencies for help if county and state resources are exhausted. The drill emphasized the significance of having a plan in place that delineates the roles of federal, state and local entities in their response to a cyber incident in the election infrastructure.