"Only 4% of US States Fully Prepared for Cyberattacks Targeting Elections"
According to security researchers at Arctic Wolf, under 4% of US states are fully prepared to detect and recover from election-targeted cybersecurity incidents. The researchers surveyed state and local government leaders across the US and found that 14.3% of states were "not at all prepared" to deal with such incidents, with 42.9% only "somewhat prepared" ahead of the 2024 US election cycle, which includes presidential and other state and local elections. Additionally, the researchers found that 16.1% of cities were not prepared at all, and 41.1% were only somewhat prepared for election-based cyber threats. Just 3.6% of city officials surveyed said their city was fully prepared to detect and recover from election-targeted cyber incidents. The researchers noted that more than four out of five (81.7%) respondents anticipate that cyber incidents related to the 2024 elections in their jurisdiction will increase or stay the same compared to the 2020 presidential election. Only 2.9% believe that cyber incidents will decrease. Despite these fears, over a third (36%) said their elections team has a "somewhat" or "very inadequate" budget to address cyber concerns around the 2024 election cycle. In addition, nearly a quarter (23.5%) of respondents said their election team does not receive election-specific cybersecurity awareness training, while 25.7% do not know whether such training is provided.