Thread by @jseldin

"We recognize that this elections for many voters will look & feel very different than it has in the past" due to #COVID19, @DHSgov Sr Advisor for Election Security Matt Masterson tells @AuburnCyber's McCrary Institute

"Today is National Voter Registration Day" per Masterson "What a perfect day for all voters to go out & register or update their registration to ensure their information is accurate & up-to-date"

"Election night results may be less complete than what you're used to seeing" per @DHSgov's Masterson "None of that means there's a problem w/the process. It means election officials are focused on accuracy, not speed, & they're doing everything they can..."

NEW: "We know because of the visibility of & the work & reporting we're getting from state & local officials that election systems, like IT systems generally, are being scanned, are being targeted, are being researched for vulnerabilities" per @DHSgov's Masterson

"While we have no evidence of direct targeting of election infrastructure by nation states, we know & continue to see reports of scanning" per @DHSgov's Masterson

"We also know & see state & local governments in general being impacted by things like ransomware & vulnerabilities being exploited in order to impact state & local governments generally, & having an impact on election offices" per Masterson

"We see cascading impacts where internet is lost, connectivity to websites is lost" per @DHSgov's Masterson "Having resilience measures in place...is really critical"

"Patch. Patch. Patch" - @DHSgov Senior Advisor for Election Security, Matt Masterson advice to state/local officials on safeguarding/keeping their systems up to date

With now less than 45 days until #Election2020, @DHSgov @CISAgov in an "enhanced readiness posture" per Masterson "...doing regular unclassified election threat briefings" for election officials

.@DHSgov Sr Advisor for Election Security Matt Masterson urges voters NOT to spread bad info/#disinformation

"Before you share election information, is it coming from one of those trusted sources" per @DHSgov' Masterson "This is going to be our best resilience measures to any attempt to undermine confidence which we know our adversaries are seeking to do"

"We continue to see spear-phishing & social engineering as the most likely avenues to target state & local officials" per @DHSgov's Masterson

"What keeps me up at night is, is there something we're not seeing? Is there something we're not tracking or pushing that we should be so we can get it to the state & local partners, the private sector to help them...in the lead-up to the election & afterwards" per Masterson

In 2018, #Pennsylvania required all 67 counties to upgrade their voting systems "meeting the highest standards of both security and accessibility" - all w/a paper trail, @PAStateDept Sec @KathyBoockvar tells @AuburnCyber

#COVID19 "impacts every front on which we have to operate & strengthen" per #Pennsylvania's @KathyBoockvar

"There is no doubt that we are in a tremendously better situation now, today, than we were (in #Election2016)"
Florida's @EscambiaVotes Supervisor of Elections David Stafford tells @AuburnCyber "Unfortunately, the threat has grown along with us"

"We know who to call if something happens now" adds @EscambiaVotes' Stafford

"I do worry about, in those last couple of days & on election day..." per @PAStateDep Sec @KathyBoockvar, calling continued communication between the federal, state and local levels is/will be critical for #Election2020

"The social media problem is a huge, huge problem & I don't have any answers" per @KathyBoockvar "It's the #disinformation & the misinformation...I keep telling people don't click retweet...It's so easy to perpetuate"

"We meet regularly w/all the social media platforms" per @DHSgov Sr Advisor Masterson "Our experience is, the amount of information they're sharing, the amount of work being done, federal government to platforms has increased a lot"

Social media companies will be in the @CISAgov #Election2020 operations center to help w/#disinformation, per @DHSgov's Masterson