A Vote of Confidence for Election Security

The U.S. made it through the 2020 election without any major cybersecurity incidents. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and other members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council also proclaimed it was “the most secure [election] in American history” — but the need for strong cybersecurity solutions has not decreased. 

Cyberattacks are on the rise, with Akamai threat researchers reporting that web application attack attempts against customers grew by more than 300% year over year in the first half of 2022, which is the largest increase Akamai has ever observed.

A security toolkit for cyber resilience

To help election authorities prepare for possible attacks, CISA has released its Cybersecurity Toolkit to Protect Elections, a toolkit with free services, solutions, and training intended to help state and local government officials, election officials, and vendors enhance the cybersecurity and cyber resilience of the U.S. election infrastructure. 

The toolkit includes an election security risk assessment and an array of free solutions, from basic to advanced, that are aligned with the Protect and Detect functions of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

Understand risks by scanning networks

The toolkit also includes Infection Monkey, an open source tool for breach and attack analysis. It tests a data center’s resiliency to perimeter breaches and internal server infections. Infection Monkey gives election officials an understanding of potential risks by scanning networks and fingerprinting machines using multiple network protocols, helping to validate existing security solutions and providing a view of the internal network from an attacker’s perspective.

Robust security solutions

Akamai provides comprehensive, layered security solutions to help you build your strategy to protect voter information, websites, applications, and networks across the spectrum of cyberattacks, including phishing, ransomware, DDoS attacks, and more. 

As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense — and part of that offense is implementing and testing your voting infrastructure to help protect elections from tampering or infiltration of voting machines and equipment, election office networks, or voter registration databases. 

The time for defense is before the attack happens. With the right mix of tools and solutions, you can prevent cyberattacks — and preserve election integrity.