National Updates

9-2-2016 - techdirt - DHS's New Election Cybersecurity Committee Has No Cybersecurity Experts - from the prepare-to-be-memoed-at,-hackers dept - There's not much to be said about Georgia's Brian Kemp and California's Alex Padilla -- in terms of cybersecurity. However, there's plenty to be said about safeguarding elections. Padilla has been sued twice over alleged election fraud. And Kemp's office mistakenly released the personal information of six million registered voters. But there's one thing they can all agree on: there's nothing to worry about. Fortunately, this lack of technical prowess won't prevent the working group from achieving the DHS's goal, which appears to have little to do with actual cybersecurity. "Secretaries of State are committed to working with our federal partners to increase awareness of federal government cybersecurity resources and services that are available to election officials," said NASS President Denise W. Merrill, Connecticut Secretary of the State. "We look forward to sharing state best practices and technical advice that will strengthen understanding and collaboration between state and federal agencies."

8-29-2016 - BradCast - FBI Warns of New Election System Hacks; Last Minute Federal Court Battles Over Voting Rights - the FBI issues a new warning to states about voting system intrusion and last minute battles continue in federal courts over voting rights access to the polls.

8-29-2016 - Yahoo News - FBI says foreign hackers penetrated state election systems - by Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent - The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.

8-18-2016 - FBI CYWATCH unit - Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems - Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems - The FBI is requesting that states contact their Board of Elections and determine if any similar activity to their logs, both inbound and outbound, has been detected. Attempts should not be made to touch or ping the IP addresses directly.

8-17-216 - Reuters - U.S. offers states help to fight election hacking - The government is offering to help states protect the Nov. 8 U.S. election from hacking or other tampering, in the face of allegations by Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump that the system is open to fraud. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told state officials in a phone call on Monday that federal cyber security experts could scan for vulnerabilities in voting systems and provide other resources to help protect against infiltration, his office said in a statement.