The House Science Committee voted to approve H.R. 4990, the Election Technology Research Act of 2019, on Nov. 14.
The Brennan Center for Justice argued in a Nov. 12 report that the Federal government needs to hold election technology vendors to higher cybersecurity standards in order to receive Federal certification. To that end, the Center offered up a new framework for oversight.
A bill introduced by Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., on Nov. 8 would establish a new Center of Excellence (CoE) and fund elections systems research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The global shortage for cybersecurity professionals reached 4.07 million and the U.S. gap nears 500,000, according to last week’s report by the non-profit membership association for information security leaders, (ISC)2.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today released its Cyber Essentials guide, which it describes as “a starting point for small businesses and government agencies to understand and address cybersecurity risk as they do other risks.”
Several senators introduced legislation on Oct. 30 that aims to “strengthen local government cybersecurity defenses by switching to the .gov domain for websites and email addresses.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, on Oct. 31 signed Act 77 of 2019, a wide-ranging election reform bill that directs significant new spending to improve election security. The legislation will take effect prior to the state’s April 2020 primary election.
The FBI released new election security resources as part of its Protected Voices initiative on Oct. 23.
A bill reintroduced in the Senate Oct. 24 aims to increase the reach of emergency alert communications on national and state levels by preventing some alert opt-outs on mobile phones, requiring that alerts issued by the White House or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) be run repeatedly by television and radio stations, and exploring how to create a system to offer emergency alerts on audio and video online streaming services.
