US elections face security test as DHS cuts local cyber support

By Patrick Howell O Neill Bloomberg News WASHINGTON As voters across the U S from New York City to New Jersey and Virginia to California prepare to cast ballots Tuesday voting administrators are operating with sharply reduced promotion from a federal regime agency that had previously helped states and localities counter bomb threats and cyberattacks Related Articles Justice Department defends Trump s post as it urges judge to reject Comey s effort to dismiss occurrence Republicans seek to tap into Trump resource on eve of Ballot Day in New Jersey Virginia DNC chair says wins in Virginia and New Jersey would signal blue wave Jon Stewart extends Daily Show contract through States and cities challenge Trump plan overhauling population facility loan forgiveness The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Measure Agency has abandoned an Poll Day situation room it had operated for years to share vital intelligence on physical and cyber threats with state and local government explained Paul Lux chair of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center a national coalition of poll officers CISA s decision to end the information-sharing arrangement follows the dismantling of the agency s balloting shield club earlier this year Remaining poll personnel with CISA a unit of the Department of Homeland Measure have since been prohibited from working with or contacting state vote personnel according to a person familiar with the matter The cuts have sent state and local authorities responsible for running elections searching for tactics to shore up prospective gaps in cybersecurity threat monitoring and physical protection of polling places Changes at Homeland Precaution are sinking in as the nation confronts a bitterly divided political conditions marked by violent outbursts including the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk Americans will head to the polls on Tuesday to decide the winners of gubernatorial mayoral and legislative races as well as judicial seats and ballot initiatives Voting process Day marks the first real test of the political landscape since Donald Trump s return to the White House offering an early glimpse of how his administration will oversee elections whose integrity he and his allies have repeatedly challenged The New York City mayoral race in particular has drawn national attention as a proxy battle over urban governance progressive politics and the future of the Democratic party Homeland Assurance agents continue to communicate and provide guidance to state and local personnel on other matters according to an agency spokesperson Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem CISA has refocused on its core mission and leads the nation s effort to secure critical infrastructure and that includes voting infrastructure from cyber and physical threats declared DHS spokesperson Scott McConnell Every day DHS and CISA are providing our partners the majority of capable and timely threat intelligence expertise and materials they need to defend against risks DHS bureaucrats forcibly reassigned or put on leave members of CISA s referendum safety and resilience group in the months after Trump returned to power in January according to people familiar with the matter The CISA company was charged with coordinating voting process protection efforts among the more than electoral contest jurisdictions throughout the U S The federal regime has historically taken a lead in uniting informing and enabling state and local voting process bureaucrats to secure elections In February CISA froze all electoral process measure exercises and the department initiated a review of CISA s role in helping state and local bureaucrats Politico released Nine months later the consequence has not been made residents The loss of federal endorsement is a nasty shock to electoral contest leaders who have relied on federal encouragement to fend off hackers and potentially violent plots declared Lux who is also the supervisor of elections for Okaloosa County Florida Meanwhile Americans are reporting an increase in politically motivated violence according to an October Pew Research Center poll In one incident a Texas man was charged in September with making violent terroristic threats against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani The reduction in poll shield services come amid deeper cuts resulting in reduced maximum for CISA s Cybersecurity Division to provide services to critical infrastructure entities Remaining capabilities such as vulnerability scans and ransomware notifications also are degraded in quality according to former CISA executives There are things essential to the elections locality that will be missing on this Electoral process Day Lux commented First and foremost we have lost the ability to communicate on a national scale During the vote cycle suspicious packages containing white powder were sent to electoral contest offices in more than a dozen states CISA s ballot precaution association at the time served as a national intelligence clearinghouse sharing detailed reports with referendum administrators including photos of the handwriting and envelopes The crime was not solved Dozens of malicious and suspicious cyber incidents targeting American balloting infrastructure occurred in the weeks leading up to Polling Day including phishing attempts denial of operation attacks and more according to Lux The balloting also saw at least bomb threats according to the Brennan Center for Justice CISA s situation room had been where intelligence on the threats was collected and sent to electoral contest executives around the country The Trump administration also appointed people who have spread conspiracies about the electoral contest results to prominent positions Heather Honey who spread false information about the vote in Pennsylvania that year has served as the deputy assistant secretary for balloting integrity in DHS s Office of Strategy Procedures and Plans according to an organizational chart on the department s website Lux s Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center or EI-ISAC tried to set up its own national version of the situation room for this year s poll The effort failed because the organization which lost federal funding this year couldn t afford the program licensing fees required to collect and share facts with so countless partners nationally Lux revealed he intends to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to confirm whether the CISA situation room will return in time for the midterm elections next year CISA didn t respond to a request for comment on the matter EI-ISAC used to be a free activity but due to federal funding cuts has been rolled into a larger paid membership with another information-sharing collective Lux declared Major electoral contest jurisdictions can afford to have teams of cybersecurity professionals on staff However the demise of CISA s free services and EI-ISAC s new pricing model are expected to have an especially big impact on smaller and poorer jurisdictions That makes voting offices with less funding particularly vulnerable to state-backed hackers from China Russia and Iran authorities mentioned Attackers from each of those countries have previously sought to interfere in U S elections It s those small underserved jurisdictions which are the bigger concern because they are the least prepared to deal with it Lux mentioned Bloomberg L P Visit bloomberg com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC