National: House Panel Zeroes in on Election Security Ahead of 2020 | MeriTalk
With election security firmly in place as the popular policy de jour on Capitol Hill in the ramp-up to the 2020 election cycle, House members from both sides of the aisle voiced support at a Nov. 19 hearing for more focus on cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure, with a particular focus on ransomware exploits. The hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation featured testimony from officials in the Federal government, academia, and the private sector, but mainly targeted efforts the private sector is making to protect U.S. elections infrastructure and political campaigns from malicious actors. Subcommittee Chairman Cedric Richards, D-La., began the hearing by highlighting Russia’s malicious cyber activity in the 2016 elections, saying, “The Russian government’s covert malicious foreign interference campaign attacked every aspect of our elections.” He further pointed to two new countries he said are working towards attacking U.S. elections – Iran and China. Rep. Richards said those countries are “weaponizing new technologies to disrupt our democracy, distort the daily news, and compromise our election security.”