Pennsylvania officials attend DHS cybersecurity training

Pennsylvania state and county officials recently attended the Tabletop the Vote 2019 cyber training exercise hosted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The exercise provided election, information technology, and security personnel with simulation scenarios that helped them train for cyber incidents that could impact voting. Personnel also were provided with best practices for cyber incident planning, identification, response, and recovery.

Last year, DHS conducted three training exercises.

“Pennsylvania welcomes opportunities like these tabletops to test our state’s election security measures and layered defenses,” Kathy Boockvar, acting secretary of state, said. “These exercises provide us with an invaluable opportunity to test our response plans and share best practices among our federal, state, and local partners.”

The Pennsylvania contingent consisted of representatives from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, the Inter-Agency Election Preparedness and Security Workgroup, the Pennsylvania State Police, the State Inspector General, the Departments of State and Military and Veterans Affairs, and the offices of administration and governor.

Pennsylvania has 67 county boards of elections. The state has initiated several measures recently to ensure a secure election process and is working with the Center for Internet Security, the state national guard and others to reach its goals.