Hi, I'm Tom Field, Senior Vice President of Editorial with Information Security Media Group. I'm talking about election campaign security and revisiting it. I'm speaking with retired Brigadier General Francis X. Taylor, now with U.S.
CyberDome. General Taylor, thank you so much for joining me today. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
General, we're just about seven months away from what I would describe as the scheduled presidential election. How would you describe the state of campaign security today as we start April? Well, generally, campaigns continue to be in their infancy and campaign security is minimally resourced as it was when we spoke before. Campaigns are dealing with the same issues that they did in 2016 and more as people have learned the effects of what happened in 2016.
Several campaigns have ended and many of their personnel are now working for the remaining candidates. It drives a highly diverse and fragmented information technology environment for campaign security. COVID-19 is causing increased telework. That greatly aggravates normal campaign cybersecurity issues.
The attack surfaces that our adversaries have become larger as people dial in on Zoom and other sorts of technology. We're pretty close to the national convention, so the rhetoric is becoming more partisan, which gives disinformation and misinformation efforts more fodder to play with. So I think we're in our infancy. I think things will get really into gear after the national conventions and we will see the same level of risk as we saw in 2016.
General, you talked about COVID-19 and the broader, really threat surface. How would you say the threat landscape has changed since we spoke last in December of last year? Well, I think the threat landscape continues to be the same as we spoke last year. I think our adversaries went to school on the 2016 election.
They honed their skills on the 2018 election. And now they are poised to support one campaign or another in trying to produce the outcomes that they want to see in the election. So I think our posture, COVID-19 notwithstanding, is a very high threat environment that we will experience as we go through the election. And we'll make this election as challenging as it was in 2016 and 2018.
So COVID-19 has affected how the entire world lives, how it works. How has it impacted the work of U.S. CyberDome so far? Well, we continue to work, albeit remotely, with our clients and much of the work that we can do, we can do remotely.
So it hasn't directly impacted our ability to work for our clients. It makes it more challenging having to do so much remotely. But we remain focused on helping our clients to protect the cybersecurity of the campaigns despite the COVID-19 restrictions. What will U.S.
CyberDome do between now and November to continue to ensure campaign security? Well, we continue to work with the national committees on both the Republican and Democratic side. And we'll work with campaigns to provide them requisite cybersecurity advice and capability. We think we can be effective, particularly after the conventions and helping campaigns to protect themselves and to ensure their security is the best possible that we can provide for them.
General, what can you tell me about the PCI-ISL? Well, you know, the whole concept behind the PCI-ISL is the information sharing and analysis organization. It really kind of stems from the ISACs that were established with the 16 critical infrastructure sectors by DHS. And the ISL is really focused on sharing of information, having a place where campaigns can share information, do so securely, so that we all better understand the security issues that are occurring in campaigns and to strategize the remedies to defeat those security issues.
So it's a hub for sharing best practices and for sharing cyber threat information. A few minutes ago, you talked about what U.S. CyberDome will do up until November. What will the organization do beyond the November elections?
Our challenge is to sustain the cybersecurity capability as we expand into Senate, House, state level, local elections. Campaigns at every level are going to be increasingly the target of cyber attacks. And so continuing to expand, we're going to stay with the Federal Election Commission current advisory that allows us only to do presidential and senatorial campaigns. But we hope over time that we'll be able to expand that advisory opinion to allow us to work with campaigns at every level of our country.
General, throughout the conversation, we've made reference to the COVID-19 pandemic. What impact can this pandemic have on campaign security if we do go into an even more extended period of quarantine and social distancing? Well, I think the initial challenge is not so much about campaign security, but election security and the fact that if we remain under the orders to distance ourselves, many states and localities do not have robust vote-by-mail capability, although absentee ballots have become much more prevalent in our elections in recent years. So I think the real challenge is going to be how we between now and November develop the processes to allow for voting by mail or to do voting with greater distances between voters.
How do we disinfect machines and those sorts of things? So I know there's money in the, I call it the stimulus bill, to look at this whole issue of election security for November. But there's a lot of work to be done between now and November to address the fact that we may not be able to go to our normal polling places to cast our ballots. General, final question for you.
What can businesses and government agencies do to help support the efforts of U.S. CyberDome? Well, you know, basically, I think it's important that government today, as we look at election security, focus on remote voting capabilities, not only to address the COVID-19 circumstances, but also to address voters who will have challenges getting to the voting locations. So I think that's the first thing government needs to do.
We also need to continue to work on campaign cybersecurity. As the government and businesses can help by joining our PCI South and sharing cyber threat information with campaigns. You know, this is a, the president has said this, and I do believe it's a whole of nation effort that's going to be required to do the things that are necessary in our democracy, like our elections, and to do them safely given the threat of this virus. It's going to take everyone's personal efforts to make sure our democracy remains strong and that we protect our citizens from this virus and disease in a way that our medical professionals have told us we have to.
Very well said, General Taylor. I appreciate your time and insight today. Well, thank you, Tom. It's been a pleasure.
It's always great to talk with you. Thank you. Again, we've been talking about election campaign security. I've been speaking with retired Brigadier General Francis X.
Taylor, now with U.S. CyberDome. For Information Security Media Group, I'm Tom Field. Thank you very much.