Cyber agency unveils national election security plan weeks before the midterms

Por Dana Nickel and Maggie Miller — POLITICO – TOP Stories

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a plan Thursday to help states and localities secure the midterm elections against potential cyber threats — the first public action on election security the agency has announced since President Donald Trump’s return to office.

The agency is charged with protecting the nation’s infrastructure, which includes election infrastructure like voting machines and polling places. But the Trump administration largely froze these efforts in 2025, and federal staffing focused on securing U.S. elections has been significantly reduced.

The 13-page plan, dubbed “Securing the Next 250,” comes just weeks before the midterms, which will determine which party controls Congress for the latter half of Trump’s term and provide insight into possible security challenges for the 2028 presidential election.

The plan outlines free resources for “election infrastructure stakeholders,” which the agency defines as state and local election offices, owners of voter registration machines, facilities that store ballots and other election equipment and polling places.

These resources include on-site penetration testing, which simulates a cyberattack on election websites or other critical systems to identify weaknesses; vulnerability scanning for potential software bugs in election-related networks or devices; and access to CISA’s tabletop exercises to help organizations practice responding to a cyberattack.

CISA has long provided these services, but the Department of Homeland Security largely put them on hold early last year as it evaluated CISA’s election security work.

“CISA’s goal is to ensure the American people can trust voting systems and know that physical safety measures will be in place when they go to their assigned polling locations to cast their votes,” the plan reads. “Election security is not a partisan issue. Election security is national security.”

CISA and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the timing of the announcement or whether the new election security plan results from DHS’s probe of CISA’s election security work.

“This plan, which will be implemented in full, is crucial to the security, freeness, and fairness of choosing the leaders of our country,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement announcing the plan Thursday morning.

CISA acting Director Nick Andersen teased the plan to reporters last week, noting that the agency’s “holistic approach” to securing critical U.S. networks also includes protecting elections.

Mullin first announced in July that CISA would release an “updated election infrastructure plan” to provide state officials with additional cybersecurity resources.

Trump has long cast doubt on the security of U.S. elections, including by attacking mail-in voting and promoting baseless conspiracy theories of widespread fraud in previous elections. In July, he delivered a primetime address on election security, which included claims that China was behind massive interference efforts targeting past elections. None of the documents the White House released in July appear to support this claim.

It’s unclear how state and local election officials will respond to CISA’s plan. Many have pointed to last year’s rollbacks as evidence that they are on their own to secure elections and told POLITICO they are increasingly concerned about moves by the Trump administration that they say could interfere with the midterms, such as FBI raids on state election offices and the Justice Department’s demands for states to turn over their voter rolls.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories