The FBI will inform state officials if local election systems have been breached, officials said. Previously the FBI would alert local governments about attacks on their electoral systems without automatically sharing the information with the state.
FILE - In this March 13, 2018, file photo, voters cast their ballots in Illinois primary elections at the city's new early voting super site in downtown Chicago. The FBI, in a change of policy, is committing to inform state officials if local election systems have been breached, federal officials told The Associated Press.
The change is intended to bolster federal-state cooperation, which has often been difficult on electoral issues, and is one of several government efforts to rethink how information about cyber threats is shared and with whom. Some local officials in the past have complained about the lack of information from the federal government, though cooperation has improved ahead of the 2020 election with concerns that Russia or another nation could try to tamper with the vote.
Officials say their goal is to sound the alarm louder and at higher levels of government than in past years, ensuring that information about efforts to interfere in the election reaches the state officials who need it the most and who have the best resources to deal with it. FBI officials say they will continue to protect the privacy of individual hacking victims, including governmental offices or local elections systems, by not sharing their identities with the public. It will remain up to electoral officials to disclose if they’ve been hacked, or if they are working with the FBI.
The policy comes two months after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a broad framework for how and in what circumstances to notify the public about foreign election interference, laying out general considerations for the government to take into account.
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