Cybersecurity Within The 2020 Election

There’s no question that the 2020 election season is a very big deal--as it should be. If history tells us anything, it is that the voting process, a vital part of our democracy, can be extremely complicated. Taking this into account, protecting the election process and ensuring that the voting is as secure and fair as possible is of utmost importance.

Elections in the United States are often “subject to attack from both foreign and domestic forces that want to forward their own agendas, and those forces will leverage whatever holes they can find in the system. While mail-in voting has gotten a great deal of attention this cycle, as has in-person voting to a lesser extent, our concern from a cybersecurity standpoint are the people, processes, and systems, that operate at most levels of the election mechanism.”

When it comes to mail-in voting, various methods have been implemented over the years to ensure the legitimacy of these votes being counted. Very few cases of mail-in voting fraud have ever been confirmed. While these cases do occur, they are far outweighed by the number of valid votes cast. An abundance of states have managed to successfully use mail-in voting for many years. With the right cybersecurity strategies and assistance from industry professionals, the challenges surrounding this method of voting can be highly reduced.

Essential Components

Some of the biggest challenges tend to be those regarding other aspects of overall election security.

As is commonplace in other facets of data protection and cybersecurity, it “boils down to protecting three key points: people, process, and systems. The people in this context are the poll workers, technical assets, and others who are actively involved in operating polling places, collecting and counting ballots, and managing the process. The processes are the myriad steps involved in running the election, from making sure voters are registered and get the correct ballot, to assuring votes cast are valid, and that they are all tallied correctly. While it may not be obvious, many of these processes have elements that are protected under the umbrella of cybersecurity. Finally, there are the physical systems involved in the processing and tallying the votes. These are the voting machines, tabulating systems, databases that enable the process to happen.”

Each and every single one of these areas can present its own individual security dilemma. People are very often subject to compromise. This means that when their private information, log-in, or credentials are stolen, their workstations can become compromised by an insider threat that poses a potential risk. User education can go a very long way in helping to minimize the severity of this risk caused by the “human element.” Making sure users practice “good access hygiene, such as using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, can reduce the threat, as can training users on how to identify and avoid phishing and Social Engineering attacks. Dealing with active insider threats is a separate issue.”

That being said, there are excellent tools such as “behavioral analytics, that can identify malicious actors and trigger automated defenses while alerting the Security Operations team of the problem. These tools are also useful for detecting and reacting to compromised accounts and related threats, all of which are betrayed by their behaviors.”

When it comes to protecting processes, this particular issue can pose a difficult challenge. A process needs to not only be both effective and efficient, but within the context of an election, a process must also be able to scale to the range of millions of participants--while maintaining the highest quality of security as possible. While processes can last “a long time and a great deal of effort to develop and implement, they should still be subject to routine review with a focus on security. In many cases, efficiency and scale are the focus with security as an afterthought. Given the importance of secure elections, security can’t be overlooked.”

The good news is that there still remain some specific tools that aid in the protection of systems used in elections, and can help protect the systems used in elections, including “the behavioral analytics tools that can spot malicious user activities. By analyzing the interactions and behaviors of voting systems, it’s possible to identify patterns that indicate a threat. Events can range from unusual traffic or unexpected access, to vote tallies that are wildly different from expectations, or simply unreasonable – such as counting more votes than registered voters.” Building off of these patterns and trends, risky actions and risky behaviors can point to potential issues and trigger an accurate response. As the 2020 Election approaches, it’s necessary to analyze and consider the individuals, processes, and systems in place so as to ensure a fair and secure election.