While questions continue to resonate after last week’s release of the Mueller report, one of the few undisputed conclusions was the Russian government interfered with the 2016 U. S. elections and, humans are the weakest link in election security.
SALT LAKE CITY — While questions continue to resonate after last week’s release of the Mueller report, one of the few undisputed conclusions in the epic document was that the Russian government interfered with the 2016 U. S. elections “in sweeping and systematic fashion.”
And special counsel Robert Mueller’s team unveiled new allegations about how Russian intelligence group GRU targeted the country’s election apparatus — even down to the level of county election offices — in an attempt to disrupt and manipulate outcomes.
Techniques employed by those state actors underscored what continues to be the most vulnerable component of any cybersecurity system — human operators.
Utah election officials say the impacts of those intrusion attempts, on their radars long before the Mueller report became public, have elevated the work and money that is going into keeping the state’s own election process free from bad actors.
And the process is one that has no end in sight.
“Election security has always been a big part of the job we do,” Utah Elections Director Justin Lee said Monday. “With the revelations that came out about disruption attempts in 2016, it became an even bigger thing. But from our perspective it is now just the norm.
“Our (cybersecurity) teams are constantly upgrading and monitoring.”
Utah election systems keep electronic voting and tabulation machines physically isolated from any internet or digital network connections, but one very large asset — the state voter registration database — remains connected.
