(KIWA Staff photo)
Statewide Iowa – State officials say Iowa elections are more secure than ever due to many layers of security. Secretary of State Paul Pate is the state’s commissioner of elections.
Pate held a news conference earlier this week in the Iowa National Guard’s Emergency Operations Center. Brigadier General Mark Kappelman says it’s where a team of experts will gather on Primary Day to monitor what’s going on throughout the state.
Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management John Benson says his staff will be there, too.
Shane Dwyer, the Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Iowa, says preparation for the next week’s Primaries is well underway.
Officials from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — known as CISA — have in past joined Pate for these pre-election briefings, but last year the agency’s programs that monitored election-related cyberattacks and potential foreign interference in elections were shut down.
Eugene Kowell, is the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s regional office in Omaha, where an Election Command Post is operating.
Hactivists are computer hackers who are part of small groups with a shared ideology, often associated with foreign adversaries.
