Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cyberwarfare

Report: Kansas Plans to Spend $4.6M on Election Security

Kansas plans to spend more than $4.6 million on election security grants over the next five years as it aims to tighten cyber security, modernize voting equipment, audit election results and safeguard voter rolls, according to a report released Thursday.

Kansas plans to spend more than $4.6 million on election security grants over the next five years as it aims to tighten cyber security, modernize voting equipment, audit election results and safeguard voter rolls, according to a report released Thursday.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission released the Kansas plan for its share of the $380 million allocated by Congress to strengthen voting systems amid ongoing threats from Russia and others. Nearly all the other states had released plans for their election security grants last month, but Kansas had gotten an extension to turn in its report.

Kansas has already received the more than $4.34 million that it sought from the federal government under the program, and the state kicked in about $219,000 in matching funds.

RelatedWill Russian Hackers Affect This Year’s US Election?

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told the federal commission in a letter that about half of its grant would be spent to increase and supplement its cyber security efforts at all levels of election administration. He said the state will supplement existing staff with security experts who are outside of state or local government.

Funds would also be made available to local governments to upgrade and supplement security and train county election personnel, Kobach wrote.

Nearly $1.07 million has been budgeted to ensure every voting machine in Kansas has a verifiable paper audit trail, according to the budget breakdown. The majority of counties in the state already have a paper-based system, Kobach said.

The state also slated more than $733,000 to improve security of the statewide voter registration system.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Beginning in January, Kansas will conduct post-election audits after every election. Its plan set aside $450,000 to implement the new auditing procedures at state and county levels.

The remaining funds would be used to create and train election officials to better communicate with the voting public and media as well as other government agencies.

RelatedColorado Tops US in Vote Security, Says Homeland Security Head

Written By

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...

Cyberwarfare

Russian espionage group Nomadic Octopus infiltrated a Tajikistani telecoms provider to spy on 18 entities, including government officials and public service infrastructures.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Cyberwarfare

Several hacker groups have joined in on the Israel-Hamas war that started over the weekend after the militant group launched a major attack.

Application Security

Virtualization technology giant VMware on Tuesday shipped urgent updates to fix a trio of security problems in multiple software products, including a virtual machine...

Cybercrime

On the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cybersecurity companies summarize the cyber operations they have seen and their impact.

Cyberwarfare

The war in Ukraine is the first major conflagration between two technologically advanced powers in the age of cyber. It prompts us to question...

Application Security

Fortinet on Monday issued an emergency patch to cover a severe vulnerability in its FortiOS SSL-VPN product, warning that hackers have already exploited the...