Page 38 - FCW, January/February 2020

Election Security
that sells or manages election systems in their state suffers a breach of its company systems — though, again, offi- cials said they reserve the right to do so in unusual, national security-related circumstances.
That approach rankled some of the officials contacted by FCW. “This is an information war, and we’re all engaged in it: voters; elected officials; state, local and federal officials; the vendors,” Mur- phy said. “This siloed approach toward information just empowers the adver- sary and weakens our defense efforts, and I don’t understand it at all.”
Technology companies build most of the nation’s election systems and often manage them through lucrative government contracts. They’re viewed as prime targets by malicious hackers because their systems are often spread across multiple states and jurisdictions
and generally operate with little regula- tory oversight.
Last year, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote a letter to Florida-based elec- tion technology company VR Systems about a breach of its network by Rus- sian hackers in 2016 that was referenced in the Mueller report. Wyden wanted to know whether the breach might have been related to irregularities in the company’s electronic poll books in several North Carolina districts on Election Day.
Lawyers for VR Systems have denied the company was breached and assert- ed last year that the federal government has never told them otherwise.
“We need to know if our vendors are being compromised, just as we need to know if our own systems are under threat of compromise,” Connecticut’s Denise Merrill said.
Her counterpart John Merrill of Ala- bama said that although he believes states should be informed when one of their vendors is hacked, federal offi- cials may not always have complete visibility into a company’s geographical footprint or the number of systems that may have been affected. He advocated letting vendors decide whether to dis- close an attack because they are in the best position to understand its scope.
Asked if he trusted companies to disclose such information, Merrill said the reputational damage they would incur from trying to cover up breaches would be devastating enough to act as a deterrent.
“This is a small community of people, and if they have a breach in the trust and confidence in the process...and people find them to be unreliable, they won’t be in business very long,” he said. n
As 2020 voting begins, concerns about disinformation persist
Just days before the botched reporting of Iowa caucus results sparked countless online con- spiracy theories, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pledged to make sure her presidential campaign curbed foreign dis- information and urged other candidates to do the same. She also called for changes in the way social media companies share and label information and advocated more formal chan- nels of cooperation with the government to thwart ongoing efforts at disruption.
A coordinated, covert
and multipronged campaign
by Russia rocked the 2016 American presidential elections, and intelligence officials, law enforcement leaders and other experts have warned that the 2020 elections will likely see similar campaigns waged by a larger group of adversaries.
One major difference between 2016 and 2020, how- ever, is that the Federal Elec- tion Commission is currently without a quorum of commissioners. That
means the organi-
zation is unable to
conduct much of its oversight respon-
sibilities for the
upcoming election,
including opening investigations and
imposing penalties on cam- paigns charged with violating election and campaign laws.
Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who has been an outspoken advocate for step- ping up efforts to fight foreign interference in U.S. elections, told FCW that without at least four commissioners, the FEC’s role in this election cycle will likely be limited to raising
public awareness.
“I think it’s important that we
use the tools that are currently available to us to try to keep
foreign campaigns, but they have all stalled in the Senate.
“Our tools are really lim- ited,” Weintraub said. “It’s a sad state of affairs, and I hope the president and Senate will fix that.”
In her recent announce- ment, Warren said that if she is elected president, she would “create civil and criminal penalties for knowingly dis- seminating false information about when and how to vote in U.S. elections.” In the past, government officials have said they are reluctant to point out online political disinformation to avoid charges of favoritism, but they would likely be more willing to do so for false or misleading information about voting logistics, such as the date of an election or the loca- tion of polling places.
— Derek B. Johnson
38 January/February 2020 FCW.COM
Ellen Weintraub
people informed about what the law is,” Weintraub told FCW. “I don’t want somebody coming in down the road and saying, ‘Oh well, I didn’t know what the law was.... How could I have possibly
known?’”
For example, it’s illegal for
campaigns to accept gifts or contributions from foreign nationals or governments, something Weintraub and oth- ers have argued could include help in the form of a disinfor- mation campaign. The House has passed bills designed to impose stricter rules on accept- ing or coordinating with covert