OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Office of the Secretary of State for Washington State announced that it will fund Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center membership costs for all of its county auditors and elections offices.
Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) is a cybersecurity company that provides cybersecurity services to U.S. state, local, tribal and territorial government organizations.
According to its website, it focuses on coordination, collaboration, cooperation and communication.
Membership provides counties access to cyber threat intelligence, incident response support and real-time information sharing, according to the Office of the Secretary of the State.
The office’s goal is to protect county elections infrastructure.
“Protecting election security at the local level where our elections are conducted is one of our top priorities as an office. By providing MS-ISAC membership for all of our county partners, we ensure they have continued access to cybersecurity services,” Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said. “The federal government is reducing its support for local election security, so we must step up as a state to provide these resources.”
The office said that federal funding cuts had reduced cybersecurity resources available to state and local governments while, at the same time, cyber threats grow increasingly sophisticated.
A large federal cut to state and local cyber security efforts happened in April, when the federal government cut funding for the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center.
The office hopes that providing MS-ISAC will help mitigate the loss.
The office also said it secured an agreement to replace Albert sensors with upgraded devices, leased by the office to ensure timely replacements under a service-level agreement.
Albert sensors are Intrusion Detection Systems that identify cyber threats that could impact networks.
