CISA issues election infrastructure security plan 40 days before midterms

The nation’s cybersecurity agency on Thursday released an election infrastructure security plan 40 days before November’s midterms, laying out potential threats to election systems and listing services it would offer to election officials to protect the vote. The plan, which Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had originally promised to release by mid-August, comes after the Trump administration has been trying to kickstart efforts to help states protect voting systems. Election officials have argued that such efforts are too little, too late after the Trump administration gutted the agency’s election security work last year, forcing the officials to pay for private services to ensure they were prepared for the upcoming elections. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is housed under the Department of Homeland Security, has since its founding in 2018 helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments. But CISA, as it’s known, was largely absent from that role in last year’s elections after the Trump administration dismantled much of its role on election security. The administration cut some 1,000 empl…