(Credit: René Ramos; sansandra/Shutterstock.com)
LAS VEGAS—Black Hat 2024 started off with warnings about election security tinged with optimism about the future of democracy around the world. This year's big question is, "What can the cybersecurity community do to ensure safe and secure elections?" After all, some 50 elections, including the US presidential election, are set to happen in 2024.
"Elections are complicated," Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said on a panel of US and EU cybersecurity experts. "I can guarantee that things will go wrong. The good news is: These types of events are disruptive, but they won't invalidate the votes cast."
Easterly stressed that the best way to protect democracy is to ignore or invalidate attempts to spread disinformation and misinformation about elections or election results. "Identify the signal through the noise," she said, warning that there will be attempts to spread lies or half-truths in the lead-up to and after the 2024 presidential election.
Felicity Oswald, CEO of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), had a similar warning. AI-generated memes are fun, but they can also be used to spread false information and influence people around high-profile elections, she said.
Easterly urged people to get information from local, state, and federal officials, not social media influencers, media outlets, or politicians. If you're in the US, visit the National Association of State Election Directors' website and choose your state from the drop-down menu, she said.
Those agencies, of course, need to work together. Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election prompted many local and state election officials to reexamine how they protect the voting process. Easterly recommended that Black Hat attendees sign up as poll workers, an "on-the-ground" approach to securing elections and understanding how votes are cast and counted.