Free Cybersecurity Offerings for Any Organization

The most sophisticated malicious cyber operators in the world set their sights on American political campaigns. Organizations that work alongside campaigns are also at risk including but not limited to political consultants, digital firms, campaign training organizations and election officials. Bad actors seek to interfere with our democracy or steal money. 

DDC,under a Federal Election Commission advisory opinion offers free cybersecurity products and services to eligible campaigns and state parties. 

However, If you can’t get free products from DDC, there are many free and trusted products available to anyone that you can use to secure your campaign or organization. 

Here’s how you can protect against the most common threats you face:

#1 THREAT: UNAUTHORIZED ACCOUNT ACCESS

Threat: Bad actors accessing accounts via phishing and other techniques to:

• Steal and/or expose sensitive information

• Use legitimate campaign accounts to steal money from donors

• Compromise social media accounts to impersonate or embarrass a campaign or candidate

Solutions: Protect Accounts with Strong Authentication

• Enable free password managers in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox or LastPass on any browser.

• Use passkeys Use passkeys on all sites that allow them most importantly on core accounts like Google and Microsoft, social and financial. 

• Yubico’s Secure It Forward provides free security keys to eligible organizations and individuals

#2 THREAT: HIJACKING OF PUBLIC PRESENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS

Threat: Campaign website compromised- Inauthentic content posted or website taken down via attack

Solutions: Protect websites with free website protection such as Cloudflare’ Project Galileo for hi-risk groups, Cloudflare Athenian Project for state and election websites or Google’s Project Shield. 

Threat: Outgoing email hijacked-Campaign impersonated to phish or influence supporters

Solutions: Protect email domains with Valimail Monitor, a free tool that authenticates sent emails and prevents impersonation.

Threat: Vulnerable campaign domain- campaigns run on platforms like Google Workspace or Microsoft Office without proper security configurations

Solutions: Protect your domain using early access product Account Security Fundamentals for Workspace from Google or M365 for Campaigns and AccountGuard from Microsoft

Threat: Compromised mobile devices- Gain access to sensitive information about a candidate or a campaign with malicious software

Solutions: Protect mobile devices with iVerify that detects state-sponsored threats, such as mobile malware

ADDITIONAL HELPFUL RESOURCES

There are many excellent groups interested in and working on the cybersecurity of our elections. Below you will find organizations and links for your convenience. We encourage you to check out the following: