With the presidential election less than a year away, Ohio’s top elections official said Friday that many local boards of elections are poised to complete his office’s security directive by the upcoming deadline.
At a security briefing in Columbus, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose revealed 52 of Ohio’s 88 boards of elections are at least halfway through implementing measures designed to prevent the state’s elections from being tampered with or hacked. The boards have until Jan. 31 to finish.
This still means 36 boards of elections are behind where they need to be less than two months from their deadline.
“The vast majority of you are going to get this done,” Mr. LaRose said, according to Cleveland.com. “A few of you will need some help and encouragement. But my goal is at the end of January, you will all be completed with the security directive, and we will be able to say to the voters that Ohio is the best prepared state in the nation from a very real and credible threat.”
Citing security concerns, the secretary of state’s office would not reveal which counties are the most far behind, or where northwest Ohio counties stand with the 34-point security checklist. Representatives from all 88 counties were required to attend Friday’s security briefing in the capital.
The directive includes measures such as background checks for employees handling sensitive information, new secure email systems for some boards, and the installation of a device that can detect network intrusions. Only 10 counties have installed the device so far, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Last month on Election Day, the state used its Albert network security system to thwart a foreign cyberattack. The system is described as a type of burglar alarm for attacks.
“Some of these unsophisticated attacks are ways that they probe for vulnerabilities. They are poking around for soft spots,” Mr. LaRose told the Columbus Dispatch.
The attack originated in Panama but was traced to a Russian-owned company. The office was able to prevent the attackers from inserting malicious code into the secretary of state’s website.
Ohio lawmakers earlier this year passed legislation to create a cyber reserve force under the Ohio National Guard. The legislation allows the secretary of state’s office to hire an information security chief to help further guard against attacks.
First Published December 6, 2019, 7:44 p.m.
