The Washington Secretary of State’s Office is funding memberships for all counties to join a multistate election-security program after federal money for election cybersecurity was cut, the Secretary of State Office announced Tuesday.
All 39 counties will be members of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a nonprofit that provides cybersecurity threat prevention and response support to 18,000 government organizations across the country.
Membership in the organization includes access to cyberthreat intelligence, incident response support and real-time information sharing, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the membership will ensure that all counties have access to cybersecurity services.
“Protecting election security at the local level where our elections are conducted is one of our top priorities as an office,” Hobbs said.
The Department of Homeland Security cut funding to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which provided election-specific cybersecurity support to election offices across the country.
Those cuts especially hurt rural counties that are underserved by cybersecurity support, according to Hobbs’ office. Fifteen of Washington’s 39 counties are considered “cyber-underserved,” according to his Office, and joining the multistate organization will help improve their capabilities.
The office also announced that in the coming months it will replace existing Albert sensors with updated devices. These sensors are intrusion detection systems that can alert local governments of bad actors or malicious activity in their networks.
