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The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released its Guide to Operational Security for Election Officials in early July, mitigating the risk of unauthorised access to systems and protecting voter PII ahead of the upcoming November election.
The six-page guide highlights the potential security risks menacing the upcoming US elections and provides actionable insights into how election officials can effectively manage them, from securing online infrastructure to protecting voter information.
The document also includes insight into how the US’ adversaries collect private information and officials can find themselves on the radar of overseas threat actors, before laying out actionable steps for the creation of OpSec policies.
“CISA provides various training programs for election workers, including secure practices, incident response planning, and de-escalation techniques,” Cait Conley, CISA special adviser to the director for election security, said. “This guide is another excellent resource CISA provides the public with to keep our elections safe and secure.”
The guide is the latest initiative of the agency following the launch of #Protect24, CISA’s campaign to keep election infrastructure free from exploitation.
The campaign provides support to government organisations working on the November election, providing advice on how to keep themselves safe, including establishing multifactor authentication, instituting an incident rehearsal plan as well as developing a “rumour vs reality” portal to mitigate the influence of influence activities on the 2024 election.
“For years, America’s adversaries have targeted US elections as part of their efforts to undermine US global standing, sow discord inside the United States, and influence US voters and decision making,” the #Protect24 website said.
“We expect 2024 to be no different. US elections remain an attractive target for both nation-states and cyber criminals.
“As we move into the 2024 election cycle, CISA and our partners in the federal government are positioned to support election officials and private sector election infrastructure partners in addressing the physical, cyber, and operational security risks they face.”
Liam Garman is the editor of leading Australian security and defence publications Cyber Daily and Defence Connect.
Liam began his career as a speech writer at New South Wales Parliament before working for world leading campaigns and research agencies in Sydney and Auckland. Throughout his career, Liam has managed and executed a range of international media and communications campaigns spanning politics, business, industrial relations and infrastructure. He’s since shifted his attention to researching and writing extensively on geopolitics and defence, specifically in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney and a Masters of Strategy and Security from UNSW Canberra, with a thesis on postmodernism and disinformation operations.
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