Ransomware Attacks During the 2020 Election Cycle

Allan Liska filed this request with the Florida Department of State - Division of Elections, Bureau of Voter Registration Services of Florida.

It is a clone of this request.

Submitted July 20, 2020
Status
Completed

Communications

From: Allan Liska

Subject: Florida Sunshine Law Request: Ransomware Attacks During the 2020 Election Cycle

Email


To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Florida Sunshine Law, I hereby request the following records:

Guidance, including guidance to state and local elections officials and Divisions of Elections IT staff, avoiding, detecting or mitigating ransomware attacks on elections systems during the 2020 election cycle, on best practices for state and local elections officials accessing or storing sensitive information, including voter databases, and evaluations about the threat of ransomware disrupting the elections.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days.

Sincerely,

Allan Liska

From: Florida Department of State - Division of Elections, Bureau of Voter Registration Services

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: Ransomware Attacks During the 2020 Election Cycle

Email

Allan - We are in receipt of your email and will be in touch.

From: Florida Department of State - Division of Elections, Bureau of Voter Registration Services

Subject: Re: Florida Sunshine Law Request: Ransomware Attacks During the 2020 Election Cycle

Email

I am in receipt of your request and will be in touch.
Sent from my iPhone

From: Florida Department of State - Division of Elections, Bureau of Voter Registration Services

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: Ransomware Attacks During the 2020 Election Cycle

Email

Allan -

Thank you for your request. I've got your original request/questions in the queue. I'm working on several requests right now, and I'm sure I'm be able to get to yours soon.

Mark R. Ard, PMP
Marketing Director
Interim Communications Director
Florida Department of State

From: Florida Department of State - Division of Elections, Bureau of Voter Registration Services

Subject: RE: Florida Sunshine Law Request: Ransomware Attacks During the 2020 Election Cycle

Email

Dear Alan:

Please find attached records responsive to your request. Please note that these records likely do not encompass the entire universe of documents as your request as phrased is exceedingly broad and does not contain a start and end date. The Department has undertaken an extensive Joint Election Security Initiative in conjunction with Supervisors of Elections since at least the Spring of 2019, and as such, the volume of documents potentially responsive to your broad request is large and touches upon records to and from a large number of employees and contractors on the cybersecurity team and others within the Department of State.

In efforts to try to further ascertain responsive documents, however, we ran the following search terms through records to and from members of the cybersecurity navigators during 2020:

"detecting ransomware"
"mitigating ransomware"
"best practices" and "ransomware"
"threat" and "ransomware"
"storing" or "accessing" and "sensitive information"
"ransomware attack"

This search alone retrieved 7,445 pages of potentially responsive documents. A brief review of a sampling of the records retrieved indicated that due to the sensitive nature of the records in relation to agency information systems, review and redaction of such records for production would involve a large number of work hours from the cyber and legal staff. Should you wish for us to prepare and provide an invoice for such future review upon payment of same, please let us know. Additionally, should you wish to provide alternative search terms and/or timeframes, for us to similarly conduct a search and prepare an invoice for same, we are happy to do so.

Barring selection of either of the two above options, or other narrowing of your request, we consider this records request fulfilled.

Mark R. Ard, PMP
Marketing Director
Interim Communications Director
Florida Department of State

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