I think the secure backup crisis that many city and county governments are facing needs to be handled in the same way that the Y2K "crisis" was handled. Lots of information available on backup strategies, off-line storage, and recovery plans.
Many of the IT managers in small locations don't know how to securely backup their systems, how to harden them. and where to turn for accurate guidance. Securing their municipal servers along with their voting infrastructures should be a national campaign.
It should be! Sadly, in my locale we've done a bit of that. Mandated that all hardware is centrally stored, and managed by a centralized agency.
However, one sad thing is that governments don't pay what private enterprise does. Further, it isn't like governments are about "exciting" computing opportunities. Don't get me wrong, people are well paid here, and there are excellent benefits (pension, etc) with government work. It's just not the same bling as with private sector work.
In old Greece, elections were held by putting a stone in a jar corresponding to your favorite person. These days, we got pencil and paper.
Then, someone suggested to vote by computer because it was 'faster and easier'. Now we waste a lot of effort trying to secure something. Lesson: more complex is not always better. Vote with pencil and paper and a lot of issues disappear. It's magic!
honestly a ransomware attack in those scenarios would be a BEST CASE scenario as it would clearly indicate that the voting systems had been compromised so fully and completely that the votes can't be trusted. Far worse are those that get in and DON'T do something obvious like ransom the system. Once the system is compromised the data is all meaningless anyway as you can no longer trust it so the risk here is not ransomware. The core problem here is they are scared they have poor security and backup practise
Many of the IT managers in small locations don't know how to securely backup their systems, how to harden them. and where to turn for accurate guidance. Securing their municipal servers along with their voting infrastructures should be a national campaign.
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It should be! Sadly, in my locale we've done a bit of that. Mandated that all hardware is centrally stored, and managed by a centralized agency.
However, one sad thing is that governments don't pay what private enterprise does. Further, it isn't like governments are about "exciting" computing opportunities. Don't get me wrong, people are well paid here, and there are excellent benefits (pension, etc) with government work. It's just not the same bling as with private sector work.
So, you don't get the bes
Terribly sorry, but your name has been is on the list that was ransom-wared. But try again next election.
In old Greece, elections were held by putting a stone in a jar corresponding to your favorite person. These days, we got pencil and paper.
Then, someone suggested to vote by computer because it was 'faster and easier'. Now we waste a lot of effort trying to secure something. Lesson: more complex is not always better. Vote with pencil and paper and a lot of issues disappear. It's magic!