State Board of Elections Timeline of Election Security Activities Date Event December 2014 Signed contract with Sidus Group, an Anne Arundel County based data center. Sidus Group was (and continues to be) a Master Contractor under the Maryland Dept. of Information Technology’s (DoIT) master contract. January 1, 2015 Current contract with Sidus Group for data center hosting begins. 2015 ByteGrid LLC purchases Sidus Group. Sidus Group remains the name on file with DoIT. September 2015 Receive audit of SBE systems hosted by Sidus. Audit covers October 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015. No reported findings. August 2016 Unusual activity on SBE’s online voter registration and ballot delivery system. More information about incident and response. September 2016 Receive audit of SBE systems hosted by Sidus. Audit covers July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016. No reported findings. September - October 2016 Independent review of data information from the unusual activity. Three entities - FBI, State’s cybersecurity vendor, and a third cybersecurity firm - came to same conclusion - no evidence of breach or compromise. October 2016 - Present Department of Homeland Security (DHS) starts performing weekly vulnerability scans on SBE websites January 2017 Add additional monitoring and analytics (using artificial intelligence) of network traffic to Sidus-hosted systems1 April 2017 Start monthly process of reviewing all computers at the local boards of elections accessing State election systems April 2017 Receive audit of SBE systems hosted by Sidus. Audit covers calendar year 2016. No reported findings. November 6 - 17, 2017 DHS conducts risk and vulnerability assessment on several critical election systems. Recommendations made and implemented. November 2017 - Present DHS starts performing assessments of State and local election facilities (office and warehouses). As of September 2018, 17 facilities have been assessed, and 14 offices have their reports. December 2017 State (4) and local (1) election officials participate in a national table top exercises hosted by Harvard University’s Belfer Center, a program of the Kennedy School of Government February 5 - 6, 2018 Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, External Dependencies and 1 The systems hosted by Sidus are: (1) MDVOTERS; (2) SBE’s suite of online voter services; and (3) unofficial results on election night. State Board of Elections Timeline of Election Security Activities Cyber Resilience Review performed by DHS for SBE’s suite of online voter services2. Included a phishing assessment for SBE employees to improve prevention of phishing intrusion. February 6 - 7, 2018 Risk and Vulnerability Assessment and External Dependencies performed by DHS for MDVOTERS3 March 19, 2018 SBE participates in cyber-related table top exercise facilitated by an Certified Business Continuity Planner, a certification issued by the Disaster Recovery Institute International March 27 - 28, 2018 State (2) and local (1) election officials participate in a national table top exercises hosted by Harvard University’s Belfer Center, a program of the Kennedy School of Government and “train-thetrainer” session. March - April 2018 Phishing Assessment performed by DHS. Included all SBE employees and all local election officials with a maryland.gov address (approximately 220 individuals) to train officials on how to avoid phishing scams. April 23 - 24, 2018 Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, External Dependencies and Cyber Resilience Review performed by DHS for MD CRIS4 April 2018 Receive audit of SBE systems hosted by Sidus. Audit covers calendar year 2017. No reported findings. May 31, 2018 Albert sensor installed. Monitors network traffic for various SBE systems and websites. June 26, 2018 Election Day (Primary Election) July 10, 2018 Learn from FBI that: (1) a New York-based private equity firm named Altpoint Capital Partners finances ByteGrid and its fund manager is a Russian; (2) Alpoint’s largest investor is Interros Holding Company, which is owned by a Vladimir Potanin, a Russian citizen. The FBI stated that there was no evidence that any of the systems hosted by Sidus have been breached. July 13, 2018 Mid-July 2018 Issue press statement concerning the information provided by the FBI Complete post-election ballot tabulation audit of all ballot images from 2018 Primary Election. Verified accuracy of the results from 2 SBE’s suite of online voter services are: (1) voter look-up; (2) polling place locator; (3) online voter registration and ballot request system; and (4) online ballot delivery system. 3 MDVOTERS is the State’s centralized voter registration, candidacy and election management system. State and local election officials access it via a closed network. 4 MD CRIS is the State’s online campaign finance filing system and online searchable database of campaign contributions and expenditures. State Board of Elections Timeline of Election Security Activities the election. August 13, 2018 Requested additional reporting by and insights into systems hosted by Sidus August 13, 2018 State and local election officials participate in national table top exercise hosted by DHS August 16, 2018 State and local election officials participate in table top exercise hosted by SBE. This exercise is based on Belfer Center model. August 20 - 24, 2018 Data collection by DHS’ Hunt team at SBE August 27 - 31, 2018 Data collection by DHS’ Hunt team at Sidus Group September 4 - 14, 2018 Data analysis by DHS’ Hunt team (off-site) September 11, 2018 SBE participates in natural disaster (hurricane) table top exercise facilitated by an Certified Business Continuity Planner, a certification issued by the Disaster Recovery Institute International September 20, 2018 Expanded Albert sensor (provided by MS-ISAC) installed to monitor network traffic for MDVOTERS. September 24, 2018 DHS issues letter to Governor Hogan stating that data analysis continues but “to date, [the Hunt Incident Response Team] has found no evidence of an adversary presence in the networks.” A report is expected in “six to eight weeks.” October 25 - November 1, 2018 Early Voting (General Election) November 6, 2018 Election Day (General Election) Mid-November 2018 Estimated date for DHS’ Unit Incident Response Team’s report