Critical Infrastructure Security, Threat Management, Threat Intelligence, Critical Infrastructure Security, Security Strategy, Plan, Budget

State of security: Nebraska

Who’s in charge: Secretary of State John A. Gale

Digital fingerprints tracing back to Russia were found probing for vulnerabilities on systems maintained by Election Systems & Software, an election services IT provider, back in 2016 when Russian threat actors attempted access the election systems of 20 other states.

The company manages the Nebraska's Voter Registration System from its headquarters in Omaha. After the attack, Nebraska and ES&S joined the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center, a consortium of states, election vendors and agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Center for Internet Security to provide real-time reporting on cyber threats and attacks made against so-called critical infrastructure programs.

The state received nearly $3.7 million in total funding to secure its election systems, some of which it used to implement two-party authentication tokens for state and county employees to access the Voter Registration databases. A randomly generated code must be used to access the system in conjunction with a username and password.

The state also uses an ALBERT Monitor, which detects suspicious activity in real time; joined the Electronic Registration Information Center (E.R.I.C.), a multi-state partnership that will enhance the list maintenance accuracy of the state’s voter registration list; and implemented security training for state and county election staff.

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