With the 2020 General Election just a few months away, election officials across Virginia are undergoing cybersecurity training to boost security in their offices.

In 2016, according to the FBI and DHS, malicious Russian hackers tried to access election systems in all 50 states. At the same time, domestic attacks have targeted voter registration systems, websites, and other sensitive election infrastructure. In response, election officials have worked to enhance their security as well as their vigilance.

For Virginia officials, that’s recently involved completing an online cybersecurity training program.

“Our state and county election officials really have a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of our democracy,” explains Daniel Persico, Chief Information Officer for the Virginia Department of Elections. “They’re the ones handling ballots, managing voter registration data and election results. And this training program is going to help them guard against threats that those things might face.”

The program, created by the Chicago nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, is broken down into three courses covering practices like creating strong passwords, protecting accounts with two-factor authentication, identifying common types of cyber attacks faced by government offices, and effectively communicating with the public about security issues.

“What we’ve seen so many times,” Persico says, “is that often it’s actually the little things — like email accounts and passwords — that can end up being the biggest vulnerabilities.”

Knowing the threats faced by election officials is what led Whitney May of the Center for Tech and Civic Life to create the curriculum in partnership with the D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology. Their goal was to make cybersecurity content that would be accessible to busy government officials with a variety of backgrounds and skill levels.

“Election officials wear many different hats,” May says, “and have different relationships to technology. What these courses do is to inform election officials about cyber threats in plain language and then suggest practical actions they can take to guard against those threats and build up their security posture. Plus, these courses are self-paced, so officials can complete them while working around their busy schedules.”

According to May, over 1,000 election officials across the country have now completed the training courses since they were introduced in 2018. Persico reports that in Virginia, 400 officials have enrolled in the program, which he says will empower officials with the information and confidence they’ll need to protect Virginia’s votes.

“There’s no such thing as being totally invulnerable to threats,” Persico acknowledges. “But our goal with this problem is to bring that ‘knowledge is power’ philosophy to our registrars of voters and boards of election, to give them resources they can lean on to defend our elections in Virginia. We know they’re up to the challenge”

Virginia’s 2020 Primary Election was held March 3, with the General Election scheduled for November 3. In addition to the President, Senate and House races will appear on ballots across the Commonwealth in the General Election.

For additional information on the security efforts of the Virginia Department of Elections, visit https://www.elections.virginia.gov/resultsreports/election-security/.

Learn more about CTCL’s cybersecurity training for election officials at https://www.techandciviclife.org/course/cybersecurity/.