Free Cybersecurity Offerings for Any Organization

The most sophisticated malicious cyber operators in the world set their sights on American political campaigns. Organizations that work alongside campaigns are also at risk including but not limited to political consultants, digital firms, campaign training organizations and election officials. Bad actors seek to interfere with our democracy or steal money. 

DDC,under a Federal Election Commission advisory opinion offers free cybersecurity products and services to eligible campaigns and state parties. 

However, If you can’t get free products from DDC, there are many free and trusted products available to anyone that you can use to secure your campaign or organization. 

Here’s how you can protect against the most common threats you face:

#1 THREAT: UNAUTHORIZED ACCOUNT ACCESS

Threat: Bad actors accessing accounts via phishing and other techniques to:

  • Steal and/or expose sensitive information

  • Use legitimate campaign accounts to steal money from donors

  • Compromise social media accounts to impersonate or embarrass a campaign or candidate

Solutions: Protect Accounts with Strong Authentication

#2 THREAT: HIJACKING OF PUBLIC PRESENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS

Threat: Campaign website compromised- Inauthentic content posted or website taken down via attack

Solutions: Protect websites with free website protection such as Cloudflare’ Project Galileo for hi-risk groups, Cloudflare Athenian Project for state and election websites or Google’s Project Shield

Threat: Outgoing email hijacked-Campaign impersonated to phish or influence supporters

Solutions: Protect email domains with Valimail Monitor, a free tool that authenticates sent emails and prevents impersonation.

Threat: Vulnerable campaign domain- campaigns run on platforms like Google Workspace or Microsoft Office without proper security configurations

Solutions: Protect your domain using early access product Account Security Fundamentals for Workspace from Google or M365 for Campaigns and AccountGuard from Microsoft

Threat: Compromised mobile devices- Gain access to sensitive information about a candidate or a campaign with malicious software

Solutions: Protect mobile devices with iVerify that detects state-sponsored threats, such as mobile malware

ADDITIONAL HELPFUL RESOURCES

There are many excellent groups interested in and working on the cybersecurity of our elections. Below you will find organizations and links for your convenience. We encourage you to check out the following:

Belfer Center: Defending Digital Democracy Project

Starting with the “Top Five Checklist” and moving into more in depth breakdowns, the D3P resources below provide helpful, bite-sized information with easily digestible graphics & lists that help not only evaluate your cyber risk, but provide steps to securing your campaign moving forward.

  • Video: Five Things (practical, 3-minute training video for campaign staff and volunteers from all political parties) :

 
 

FBI: Protected Voices

The Protected Voices FBI initiative aims to mitigate the risk of cyber influence operations targeting U.S. elections. The link below provides informative videos crucial to campaigns. The topics range from protecting passwords to social engineering threats to what to do if you think you’ve been hacked.


National Governors Association: RESOURCE CENTER FOR STATE CYBERSECURITY

The NGA Resource Center provides a comprehensive list of resources, tools and recommendations to help craft and implement effective state cybersecurity policies and practices.


Center for Democracy and Technology 

The CDT has written a helpful breakdown to compare “Traditional volunteers” with “Technical volunteers” while highlighting the importance of using civic-minded community members with technical skills to support experience both on Election Day and beyond.


Center for Internet Security 

Through a best practices approach, the CIS aims to help organizations involved in elections better understand what to focus on, how to prioritize and parse the enormous amount of guidance available on protecting IT-related systems, and engage in additional collaboration to address common threats to this critical aspect of democracy.


Global Cyber Alliance

Use the GCA Cybersecurity Toolkit for Elections to help you implement the best practices from the CIS Handbook, find practical tips, and improve the security posture of your election office.



feedback

Do you have additional resources, ideas, stories, and comments? Share with us on Twitter @defendcampaigns or email us at info@defendcampaigns.org so we can continue to improve our resource list.