CISA on 2024 election security: 'Good news' for democracy

CISA Director Jen Easterly praised the security and resilience of the 2024 U.S. presidential election as "a good news story for democracy" during a media briefing held Tuesday evening.

The briefing, which TechTarget Editorial attended, was the final of four briefings held by the U.S. cybersecurity agency on Election Day, providing updates on any potential disruptions to the voting process either that day or during the weeks of voting that occurred up to that point.

On Monday during a similar briefing, Easterly said "election infrastructure has never been more secure" and added that election officials were well prepared to respond to potential disruptions and threats. She said that up until that point, the agency had identified only "small-scale incidents resulting in no significant impacts to election infrastructure," including low-level DDoS attacks, criminal destruction of ballots and drop boxes, severe weather in parts of the U.S., and threats against election officials. The director also referenced "an unprecedented amount of disinformation" being peddled by foreign adversaries during this election cycle.

Similar language continued into Tuesday. The early media briefings were led by CISA Senior Advisor to the Director Cait Conley, who similarly said CISA was tracking instances of extreme weather and temporary infrastructure disruptions in certain parts of the country, but added that "these are largely expected, routine and planned-for events."

The most notable disruptions yesterday were bomb threats that occurred in polling locations in multiple battleground states, including Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The FBI said in a statement Tuesday that none of the threats appeared to be credible and that many of the threats "appear to originate from Russian email domains." In some cases, the threats required polling locations to be checked by police; Georgia's Fulton County and DeKalb County extended voting hours as a result of temporary disruptions.

Easterly on Tuesday night referenced the bomb threats and said CISA didn't have "much new to offer." She said the threats were deemed noncredible and "did not impact the ability for voters to cast their ballots." Regarding the election itself, Easterly said, "We witnessed the resilience of our process and the preparedness of election officials as they administered free, fair, safe and secure elections."

The idea that the threats did not affect the ability for voters to cast their ballots was questioned during the Q&A section of the call at multiple points. PBS NewsHour correspondent Nick Schifrin asked whether the threats represented an elevated attempt to disrupt the election compared with those seen previously. In response, Easterly said any disruption like this is "one of many" seen during an event of this kind.

"As I mentioned, these threats have in some cases delayed voting and thus delayed counting," Easterly said. "There are many processes in place when there is a disruption, whether it's a physical threat or a weather event or a technical issue with equipment, to keep polls open later, and sometimes it delays the vote. This is a kind of disruption, but it is one of many disruptions that we have been talking about within an incredibly complex event that involves hundreds of thousands of election workers and tens of thousands of polling places."

At the end of the call, the CISA director said the agency would continue to work and monitor for threats as the election is certified, but that overall, CISA's work was successful.

"We will be working in our operations center in the coming days to monitor anything else that's happening in the threat environment, still connected with election officials at the state and local level as they work to do their canvassing and certification and ensure that every vote is counted as cast," Easterly said. "We will look to make additional statements as necessary when we make a more fulsome assessment of the security and integrity of the election, but I think overall, I would call this a good news story for democracy."

Easterly used similar language in a more formal statement published to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

"As we have said repeatedly, our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people," she wrote. "This is what we saw yesterday in the peaceful and secure exercise of democracy. Importantly, we have no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure."

Congratulations to the entire election community who helped make the 2024 elections safe and secure. Sharing my statement on the security and resilience of the elections. pic.twitter.com/wbvuGxHz60

— Jen Easterly (@CISAJen) November 6, 2024

Former CISA Director Chris Krebs, who was fired by former President Donald Trump in 2020 after the agency pushed back on Trump's unfounded accusations about widespread voter fraud, said in a post on X that the 2024 election cycle appeared to be safe and secure, and "just another Tuesday on the internet." He also praised officials for their continuing work to certify the election.

"We'll learn more about the bomb threats in the coming weeks, I'm sure, but bomb threats and swatting are common occurrences (sadly) for election officials," Krebs wrote on X. "They ran the playbooks they've practiced for decades. We need to have a larger reckoning with the ease by which these threats can scale, and if there are meaningful interventions available to stop them -- but in the meantime, well done to officials that worked through the madness."

Alexander Culafi is a senior information security news writer and podcast host for TechTarget Editorial.