Secure Elections and Defending Democracy with Cait Conley

Andrew McClure [AM] 

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Forgecast. I’m your host, Andrew McClure. I’m pleased to have with me today, my good friend Cait Conley, Senior Advisor at CISA. 

Cait is an experienced combat veteran with demonstrated leadership in global special operations, cyber operations, and counterterrorism. Most recently, Cait served as the Director for Counterterrorism for the National Security Council prior to joining CISA as a Senior Advisor to the CISA Director. 

She previously served as the Executive Director of the bipartisan Defending Digital Democracy Project based out of Harvard University’s Belfer Center. As Executive Director, she led the development and implementation of strategies, tools and recommendations for election administrators, election infrastructure providers, campaign organizations, and leaders involved in democratic processes to better defend against cybersecurity threats. 

Cait, welcome and thank you for joining us today. 

Cait Conley [CC] 

Thanks for having me. The timing of this conversation could not be any more real. 

AM 

Cait, as we record this episode, we are a week out in the United States for voting. By the time we release this episode, we will be days away from the 2024 Presidential election, but we are already well into election season. By some estimates, over 30 million votes have been cast. Some by paper ballot, some in person, and even in some states we are seeing 40 percent of eligible voters have already cast ballots. So, let’s jump right in.  

The elections are upon us. Cait, can you tell us more about the current context we are in? What are the biggest challenges and threats you’re seeing over at CISA?  

CC 

Thanks so much Andrew, and thanks to all of you who are listening. This is the topic that I think is near to dear to all of us. It’s a topic about who we are as a country and it’s our democracy. I think before I dive into some of the threat environment, I’d like to paint a little bit of the picture on the role of CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and how we came to recognize that election security is national security.  

This story really begins back in 2016, when we saw Russian efforts to interfere and influence the 2016 presidential election. I think that was the watershed moment for our country, for the American people, and for the election community to really recognize that our adversaries were trying to undermine American standing globally, and were going to attack us where they think they can make it hurt most. That’s why our democracy is a prime target for their efforts. What we’ve seen since 2016 are some very significant steps to invest in the security and resilience of our nation’s election infrastructure.

As we talk about what we’re facing in 2024, we are absolutely seeing arguably the most complex threat environment yet for an election. But our election infrastructure is also more secure than it’s ever been- and the election community, more prepared than ever to face this range of threats. That’s why we are so confident. We hope every American has confidence in the fact that their votes are going to be counted as cast. However, we’re not complacent. I think a lot of this is rooted into what our foreign adversaries are really looking at doing, in terms of leveraging a range of tactics with very specific and shared goals to undermine the American public’s confidence in our democratic institutions and to sow partisan discord.

We are looking at a threat landscape where foreign malign influence operations are at greater scope and scale than any prior cycle. That’s being added to existing threats in the cyber domain posed by cyber criminals and other foreign state actors or the same, who are looking to do things like conduct ransomware attacks targeting businesses and critical infrastructure, conducting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. But we also are facing very real threats in the physical domain domestically. Just in this year, we’ve seen how these disinformation campaigns- to include many of which are stemmed from claims that the 2020 election did not reflect the will of the American people, which is not founded- those claims have led to very real targeted threats, harassment, and even some acts of violence against election officials and election offices across this country. Election officials of both political parties and in some cases, even their families.  

At CISA, we are incredibly proud of the role that we play as the federal government lead working with election stakeholders, both state and local election officials and election vendors, to prepare for, mitigate, defend against, and respond to the full spectrum of cyber, physical and operational security risks to our nation’s election infrastructure.  

AM 

Cait, maybe that’s a good segue just to talk about, what is the federal role of election security. Of course, states run elections across the country, varying by state laws and how they conduct the election. Can you provide us with a bit of how you have been working with states so far throughout this election cycle? More importantly, highlight what is it not the role of CISA as well? Where does your job as a representative of the federal government stop? Where do states also pick up?  

CC 

Really important question, right? Per our Constitution, states are responsible for administering federal elections. When we talk about who is at the front lines of administering, managing and securing democracy, it’s the state and local election officials. In this job, as the CISA Election Security Executive and Senior Advisor to the Director, I’ve been able to travel the country and meet with election officials at the state and local level. I have to tell you, no matter where I am at, the one thing I’m continuously amazed by and inspired by is the level of effort and the tireless endeavors by these incredible public servants to do everything they can to ensure the security and resilience of our democracy.  

At CISA, we are incredibly proud of our role in standing shoulder to shoulder with these frontline defenders of our democratic process as they do look to mitigate risks. That should be what we are doing because these folks aren’t just taking on the routine issues, the routine things I think democracy has seen and overcome like disruptions from Mother Nature. We just saw Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeast and incredible stories of resilience there in the states impacted. But in addition to natural disasters, we have foreign state actors deliberately looking to attack our democratic institutions. It’s not right to expect state and local officials to take that on alone. That’s why the role of the federal government is so important. And we are proud to be part of a whole of government team where we’re joined often by our Federal Bureau of Investigation colleagues, our Office of Director of National Intelligence colleagues, to really help these folks have all of the information they need to understand the threats that we’re facing, the tactics our adversaries are using.  

At CISA, we also provide tools like cybersecurity and physical security services, whether it’s going out and conducting a cybersecurity assessment for election offices, or a physical security assessment of election offices, or doing more advanced cybersecurity offerings like vulnerability testing or penetration testing, all the way to training and readiness exercises because it’s not just about defending, it’s also about being prepared to respond when the attacks come. That’s where we focus a lot of our efforts, not just on services but on no-cost trainings that unpack specific threat vectors like ransomware, distributed denial-of-service, and even swatting, which is a tactic we’ve seen this year- practicing those incident response plans to include with critical partners like state and local law enforcement and ensuring that they are ready to implement those measures in a way that ensures the security integrity of the democratic process. 

AM 

That’s great. Can you expand a little bit more then, as you’re doing these tabletop exercises with states, as you’re doing these security assessments, what topics keep coming up? Are there specific threats too that, as a member of CISA, you aim to highlight as you work with the states to be prepared for?  

CC 

I think the good news story in 2024 is even with generative AI capabilities being more prevalent, we are not seeing any fundamentally new risks to this election cycle. But we are seeing how technical capabilities are exacerbating pre-existing risks, especially in the foreign influence operations and disinformation domain and in the cybersecurity domain. We do continue to see cyber criminals conducting DDoS or ransomware attacks targeting infrastructure writ large to include election infrastructure. 

I really wanted to say something that I hope folks take away from this. We believe so strongly in this that CISA and the FBI actually did a public service announcement campaign this summer focused around these topics. When you actually unpack election systems and election infrastructure and understand how those systems work- even if an election office experiences a ransomware event on Election Day or a DDoS attack on Election Day, while that’s disruptive, it’s okay because those things have absolutely no bearing on the security and integrity of the vote casting and vote counting process. I think this is a really important thing to highlight because while we are very concerned about cyber-related disruptions, our foreign adversaries are going to leverage those moments as part of their foreign influence operations to try to undermine the American public’s confidence in our democratic institutions. We already saw this happen in 2020 where Iran purported to conduct a cyber activity or a cyber event that allegedly undermined the integrity of a specific state’s election infrastructure. They tried to spin that to say, oh, you can’t have confidence in the vote because of this. It’s total nonsense. 

Our adversaries are going to try to latch on to narratives to exploit these types of things that are going to further exacerbate partisan tension- all in these efforts to undermine American confidence in our democracy and to try to further their own foreign policy objectives. We’ve seen the cyber side manifest. We’ve seen the foreign influence side manifest. For folks who haven’t checked it out, on October 18th, CISA and the FBI, we released our fourth public service announcement focused on foreign malign influence efforts where we unpacked some of the specific tactics we’ve actually seen Russia and Iran using this election cycle to undermine or attack election-related things. Some of those things that we’re seeing these tactics manifest, they’re things like cybersquatting: creating a website that is purporting to be a legitimate media institution, and then filling that spoofed website with synthetic articles purporting to be from real authors that are just all about these influence narratives and propaganda. We saw that manifest from Russia and some of their campaigns where they purported to be The Washington Post and Fox News.  

We’ve also seen tactics with Iran and, also Russia, where they’ll actually create these fake media sites targeting specific geographic areas or demographics. Then, they’re leveraging these fake media sites with these synthetic articles with all of this propaganda to try to influence American voters in those regions to, again, just try to attack the American people’s confidence in the democratic institutions or stoke further partisan discord. They’ve been very selective in finding narratives that resonate.  

Last week, we saw the Office of the Director of National Intelligence put out an intelligence product that was declassified that highlighted some of these narratives. Some of the ones we’re seeing Russia push on social media and through these fake websites include things like non-citizen voting, making it an issue where it’s not. Things like voter fraud, again, claims of voter fraud or illicit activity. We saw that manifest just last Friday where CISA alongside the FBI and ODNI issued a statement where we attributed a fake video in which ballots for one potential or for one presidential candidate were allegedly destroyed by election workers. Totally fake! [The news] was made by Russia, was distributed by Russia. I think the challenge here and why we are trying so hard to be so transparent at the federal government this cycle and why it’s different than 2020, is the aggressiveness of these campaigns in targeting American voters and how compelling these campaigns are because technology has made them more convincing and more sophisticated. We want the American people to know that our adversaries are doing this so that they can be smart consumers of information and so that they have the power to recognize what tactics are out there because we don’t want to do the work of our foreign adversaries for them. 

AM 

That’s a great reminder that we’re seeing a lot of tactics evolve from our adversaries. Hacking and dumping operations are not new. We’ve seen that in prior elections. We’ve seen the public reporting as recently as last week targeting specific presidential campaigns, setting up personas, and then releasing OPPO (opposition) material against folks on the ticket. 

I’m curious how the strategies at CISA are both evolving, but also striving to retain public trust, especially given sensitive topics like disinformation, where you’ve had in the past conversations with foreign actors trying to interject in the conversation. But also, here in the US, we have a very lively political debate too, where individuals may opine on matters as being disinformation when they are not in fact disinformation. How do you see the role of foreign actors, but then also the role of CISA specifically evolving your strategy to stay both ahead of threats, but then also retaining public trust in doing so?  

CC 

Really, really important question, because what makes America the greatest country in the world is our freedoms. So, ensuring that we are protecting and preserving those freedoms is a priority and the foundation of everything that we do. But when it comes to what our foreign adversaries are looking to attack, we are committed to ensuring that the tactics they are using, we are putting out there. Not just so the election security community knows what they are and so that they’re postured to defend against them, although that’s a big part of it. But also, so that the American people know because this has got to be a whole of society defense of our democracy. We have seen some domestic actors who have deliberately used incomplete or incorrect information to further their own objectives. What I’d say there is we have to recognize that when we do that, we are doing the work of our foreign adversaries for them and that regardless of what the outcome is this November, what matters the most is the democratic institution itself. That is where we want people to have tremendous confidence in knowing that election officials across this country are these incredible public servants and despite threats of harassment and threats of violence, which are completely unacceptable and not who we are as a nation- there is nothing more un-American than going after people who are just trying to bring democracy to bear for the American people- despite all that, these folks still stand up and work tirelessly every day to ensure a secure and resilient process. I do want to also just remind folks that when we talk about state and local election officials, they’re not faceless bureaucrats. They’re our neighbors, they’re our family, they’re our friends. They’re the folks we see at the grocery store or at the movie theater or you name it.  

Democracy is of the people, by the people, for the people. I think what’s really upsetting is examples like we what we saw last week where we had a foreign influence operation that was deliberately trying to stoke animosity towards these public servants by alleging that they were conducting something illicit that they weren’t doing. I think understanding that these types of tactics or what are what is being used is really important because we’ve seen how disinformation can lead to violence. We are better than that as a nation. Recognizing that that’s out there, understanding that Russia and Iran are behind it, I think it’s a really important thing for Americans to do and to unite behind.  

We saw this summer, as an example, that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence put out how Iran was using influence operations to try to foment protest here in the United States around the Israel-Gaza conflict. After 2020, we saw Iran put out a website called Enemies of the People, putting election officials faces and personal information out there, their home addresses, deliberately trying to stoke threats and harassment towards public servants. Again, at the end of the day, the process is what matters. We want the American people to have confidence in that process and recognize that it is under attack by our foreign adversaries. We have to unite, we have to defend our democracy together regardless of the outcome.

AM 

Do you have a best- and worst-case scenario then, come November 5th, that you would like to see and then also hope to avoid? 

CC 

What we saw for 2020 was, for folks who aren’t familiar with election administration, that when polls close on Election Day, that’s not the end of the election administration process. What you see come out on the news, that’s the unofficial results reporting. Every state has someone who is their chief election official. This public servant is the one who’s charged with certifying that state’s results. Before they do that, there’s days and in some cases up to a couple weeks of process that goes on to certify those results to include things like post-election recounts where needed or audits to ensure the accuracy of everything that’s being certified. In that time period after Election Day and before the official results are pushed, there are opportunities to really try to undermine the American public’s confidence in the election process and the outcome specifically. That’s regardless of which candidate wins. Russia, Iran, China, they just don’t want the American public to have confidence in our democracy, period. 

I do hope that Americans recognize when they start seeing things on social media or even fake websites that you may not even recognize aren’t the real ones- these are tactics that our adversaries are using and they’re going the extra mile to use tactics in a way that’s going to hide their hand. Please just take a moment, be deliberate consumers of information. Before you push something or share something, see if it’s coming from a trusted source of information. I’ll tell you, when that comes to elections, that trusted source of information is your state or local election official. Full stop. Those are the folks who are committed to ensuring the security integrity of the process and are going to tell you the facts on the ground and what’s actually happening.  

Again, just to paint another great story, we saw this in New Hampshire with the robocall back in January. We saw this last week in Pennsylvania with the County Board of Elections. We are seeing state and local election officials speak out to their voters, to their constituents when things go wrong, and explaining this is why you shouldn’t believe this, here’s the facts. What I hope to see and what I believe we will see is regardless of the outcome, is American confidence in that outcome, regardless if they like it or not. It’s the institution itself and the strength and resilience to stand up to the information campaigns that our adversaries are going to wage. 

AM  

Cait, we’ve talked a lot about foreign adversaries and what their interests might be and undermining confidence in the election year. This is an area, too, where you spent the bulk of your career just appreciating both the counterterrorism threats that we face in the Middle East while you were a member of the Armed Services, as well as while you were at the White House on the National Security Council. Can you tell us a little bit about how your time at the NSC might have shaped your view about defending democracy and protecting against election interference today? 

CC 

Absolutely. As you mentioned, you’re a veteran, I’m a proud veteran too. I joined the Army after 9/11. Growing up in upstate New York, I felt compelled to serve and a calling to serve, and I’m proud that I’ve done numerous combat tours in defense of this nation and who we are. At the National Security Council, where you have an appreciation for the complexity of the national security landscape, it really does open your eyes to the various vectors in which we as a nation can be vulnerable and what it takes to do comprehensive homeland defense.  

In this job, I’ve had the privilege of trying to help really assure the defense of our nation’s critical infrastructure. We’ve talked a lot about the targeting of election infrastructure, but we just look at the targeting of critical infrastructure writ large. The threat posed by ransomware groups to things like hospitals and the impact that’s having on the American people. The actions that we’re seeing coming out of China with the deliberate posturing not just to conduct espionage, but posturing our critical infrastructure in order to be placed to potentially disrupt activities and the American way of life if there was a conflict involving Taiwan.  

I think when we talk about national security and homeland defense, homeland is a big part of that. I’m incredibly privileged to be part of the Department of Homeland Security and the CISA team as we take on this mission. But one thing that’s incredibly unique and I think very special about the CISA mission is that it’s really about teamwork. When we talk about defending America’s critical infrastructure, the overwhelming majority of it is owned and operated by the private sector. We cannot do this alone. I think what’s been incredibly special is that, just like how I spent the majority of my career in the special operations community where it’s all about highly qualified teams taking on the hardest problems, that’s what we do here [at CISA] too. We build public and private teams to take on really hard problems for the greater good. It’s just been an awesome privilege to be part of this fight. When it comes to defending our democracy, whether it’s out on the front lines in foreign countries or whether it’s right here at home, trying to really support those on the front lines here, state, local election officials- it’s really an inspiring and humbling role to play. Again, as a veteran, I have to tell you, when I meet these state and local election officials, especially some of the ones who’ve been targeted for just doing their jobs, I am moved and inspired by their strength and resilience.  

I just hope that anyone who’s listening, when you see your state and local election official out there when you go to vote, please thank them for their service because they’re doing a lot. We’re asking them not just to administer elections, but to secure election infrastructure against physical threats. Andrew, this year we’ve literally had letters laced with fentanyl mailed to election officials to frighten them and to disrupt election operations. How is this happening in America- I still struggle with it, but this is the type of stuff that they’re overcoming and they’re still saying, hey, I’m here and I’m going to serve the American people with this incredibly important mission. 

AM 

Cait, you spent the majority of your career drawn to public service, whether in defense or the White House or at federal agencies like CISA. What advice might you have to others listening to this today about pursuing their own career, either in cybersecurity or more broadly in national security?  

CC 

I’d say there are so many ways to make a difference. We could not be successful at CISA or in the federal government without incredible partners in the private sector who are willing to put country above all else. I think that is really the most important thing here. When we talk about defending democracy, we all have a role to play in this- seizing those opportunities, finding that ability to contribute wherever you are. But I have to say, I think the role that state and local government plays in keeping our nation secure and vibrant and the critical functions going was something that I didn’t have an appreciation for before 2016 and was an eye opener to me. I would definitely encourage exploring public sector service at the state and local level as well as federal. But if you’re in the private sector, there’s a way to make a difference too. Again, just remembering to put country above other things, I think, is one of the most important things any of us could ask. 

AM 

Cait Conley, thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed talking about this important conversation. There’s nothing more sacred in a democracy than going to the ballot box. So, if you haven’t already mailed in your ballot or gone in person, I encourage you to do so if you’re able. Cait, we appreciate all the work that you’ve done while at CISA and beyond and the work that you continue to do supporting the integrity within our elections. Thank you for joining us today. 

CC 

Thanks for having me. Thank you all. Go vote!