A panel led by former Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney campaign officials has released a slate of recommendations for future election operations to guard themselves against cyberattacks. The final report from Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy project comes roughly a year after the 2016 November presidential election, ahead of which the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were successfully targeted by cyberattacks. The U.S. intelligence community has tied the hacks to a broader campaign by Russia to interfere in the election. Robby Mook and Matt Rhoades, former campaign managers to Clinton and Romney, respectively, positioned the project as an effort to help future campaign operations be more secure against cyber threats, regardless of their party affiliation.
“Cyber adversaries don’t discriminate. Campaigns at all levels — not just presidential campaigns — have been hacked. You should assume you are a target,” the final report states.
“While the recommendations in this playbook apply universally, it is primarily intended for campaigns that don’t have the resources to hire professional cybersecurity staff,” it states. “We offer basic building blocks to a cybersecurity risk mitigation strategy that people without technical training can implement.”
Full Article: Bipartisan Harvard project issues election hacking recommendations | TheHill.