Shortly after midnight on June 17th, security guard Frank Wills noticed tape on a door leading from the parking garage into the office building he was employed to secure. The tape was covering the latch of the door preventing it from locking. He removed the tape and continued his patrol of the facility. Thirty minutes later, the security guard returned to the door and noticed tape had been placed over the latch again. Wills immediately ran to the lobby telephone and called the local police. After they arrived, Wills and the police turned off the elevators and locked all the exit doors. The police officers and the security guard then began to search the building's many offices one by one. The discovery they would make that night changed U.S. politics and the course of history.
Like businesses that increasingly rely on technology, political campaigns are vulnerable to cyberattacks and cyberespionage. All Internet connected organizations including political campaigns are the target of cybercriminals, nation-states, hacktivists, and even their election rivals. Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are just a few of the political candidates and entities that have been the victim of a cyberbreach. Along with the ever-increasing use of technology in election campaigns, political espionage has also progressed from office break-ins into the digital realm today.
Regardless of size and the office aspired to, all political campaigns are the target of cyberattacks and require security solutions to be protected. These are some cybersecurity resources for protecting political campaigns.
US DHS – Campaign Checklist | Securing Your Cyber Infrastructure
Harvard University's Belfer Center – What Every Candidate Should Know About Cybersecurity
Cloudflare – Cloudflare for Campaigns
FBI – Protected Voices
If you are a cybersecurity professional – support your candidates the best way you can by volunteering your knowledge, experience, and expertise. Your unique skills and time are more valuable than any financial donation to a campaign. Cyber volunteers can play a critical role in ensuring our election process is protected from malicious attackers. Political candidates and their campaigns are the first line of defense in election security for the entire country.
In the early hours of June 17, 1972, Frank Wills and the police officers found five intruders inside the offices of the DNC headquarters located on the 6th floor of the Watergate Office Building. The burglars would soon be revealed as operatives of the Committee for the Re-election of the President. The Committee was the re-election campaign organization for the then President, Richard Nixon. The events of that night would change the future of the United States and become synonymous with scandal in the cultural language of the country.