National: Senator Klochubar wants Kaspersky out of U.S. voting systems | FCW
A U.S. senator has linked two of the hottest tech policy stories around – efforts by U.S. agencies to blacklist cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky Lab and concerns about the vulnerability of voting systems used by cities and states. Sen. Amy Klochubar (D-Minn.) who sits on a committee with authority over federal elections, is concerned that Kaspersky could be in a position to provide Russian intelligence agencies access to state and local election data, by virtue of connections to computers involved in managing election activities. “Given recent revelations regarding how Russia used Kaspersky software to breach our systems, it is important to prioritize state critical infrastructure systems in conjunction with efforts currently underway at the federal level,” Klochubar wrote in an Oct. 12 letter to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke.