If there’s one thing that was learned from the 2016 presidential election, it’s that protecting our country’s election infrastructure cannot be a passive decision. There’s a need to be proactively assessing our environment to ensure that we are implementing the cybersecurity features that fortify our systems and, ultimately, our democracy. This is where the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) comes into play.
CISA, dubbed “the nation’s risk advisor,” was officially inaugurated in 2018 as a standalone component within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its primary objectives are to lead cybersecurity efforts across the federal government and to work with the critical infrastructure community to help protect their networks. But CISA was not conceptualized solely on the basis of Russian interference in 2016 – there are a number of evolving concerns that CISA plans to prioritize as it enters its second year: supply chain, 5G, and election security.
Standing up CISA in November, an effort began by President Obama’s administration but realized by President Trump
