Law Enforcement
FBI will notify states when election systems are breached
The FBI announced plans to expand its victim notification policy to ensure state officials are briefed when election infrastructure located in their state but owned by local jurisdictions suffer a cyber-intrusion.
In a press briefing with reporters, a senior FBI official who spoke on background said the internal policy change was meant to increase "visibility and transparency" about similar intrusions for the 2020 elections.
"If the FBI only notifies a local election official of a cyber threat, it may leave the state election official with incomplete knowledge about the threat landscape surrounding the integrity of the elections in their state," the official said. "So we wanted to work towards creating a policy that really respected the rules and authorities at both the state and local level."
The shift comes in the same week the top election security executive at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged criticisms that information shared by the government about Russian hacking threats in 2016 had "a lack of context and specificity" and said she was "committed" to ensuring the Intelligence Community does a better job informing stakeholders leading up to the 2020 elections.
Under the new policy, the FBI will conduct briefings with each state's designated chief election official at or around the same time they notify officials for the local jurisdiction, and any delay in notification would require sign off by FBI division leaders. However, the new policy would not inform states when a private election vendor o ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
