State officials are facing scrutiny about the security of election systems before the November midterms, with concerns about whether voting and registration systems will be impenetrable to potential hackers.
McAfee has joined the fight, announcing the complimentary distribution of McAfee Skyhigh Security Cloud with a 12-month free license to all state election officials.
Participation in the program requires the review and approval of the user’s election infrastructure to confirm that it meets McAfee system requirements and that participation does not trigger any state or local contract or ethics restrictions, the company said. The program focuses on protecting election data and will help ensure that the cloud-based storage services housing voter and citizen data are properly configured for maximum security and are continuously monitored for internal and external intrusion.
“McAfee believes that ‘together is power’ and is committed to protecting the integrity of the electoral system,” said Ken Kartsen, vice president of public sector sales at McAfee. “We believe the McAfee Cloud for Secure Elections Program will fill a foundational security requirement for cloud by protecting against intrusion from those who aim to tamper with the United States elections.”
According to a company statement, the McAfee Skyhigh Security Cloud provides monitoring, auditing and remediation solutions for infrastructure-as-a-service environments, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, and software as a service (SaaS) environments, such as Office 365 and Box. State election officials who take advantage of the offer can use McAfee Skyhigh Security Cloud to ensure the integrity and security of their voter data throughout the election cycle. For example, they can continuously monitor AWS and Azure storage resources that house voter data to ensure that they have enabled the most stringent security settings possible, and they can monitor Office 365 and Box to ensure that voter data is not housed or shared in SaaS services in violation of security policies.
“McAfee is committed to putting our cybersecurity expertise to work in the defense of democracy around the world,” added Kartsen.
Find more information on the program here
