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Major General Richard Neely, the adjutant general of Illinois
and commander of the Illinois National Guard, joined other
National Guard leaders Friday to discuss cyber support for the
election. Neely said recent history in Illinois makes this an
important issue.
“We saw the challenges that came out of the 2016 election, and
for us in Illinois that is something that caught our attention,”
said Neely.
Neely was referring to a Russian hack into the Illinois election
database. The personal information of about 500,000 Illinois
voters, including names, addresses and driver’s license numbers,
were exposed in the hack.
Twelve Russians were charged in the attack, which election
officials said was not an attempt to change the outcome of the
election.
“Not one vote was attempted to be changed,” said Matt Dietrich
from the Illinois State Board of Elections. “That was not the
object.”
After the Russian hack, officials said they installed new
firewall hardware and software to shore up voting systems to
prevent another attack.
Cyber security is apparently on the minds of many election
officials around the country. According to a report by NBC, more
than 100 state and local election jurisdictions that reached out
to the federal government for help ensuring the digital security
of their election-related systems are now on a waiting list just
ahead of the midterm elections.
Neely said cyber security is still in its infancy.
“Cyber is that new domain, it's a manmade domain, so it's
different than land, sea, air, space, and because of [that
distinctiveness], I think each of our states, our nation and the
entire world is trying to get their arms around security and
what that means,” said Neely.
The National Guard provides cybersecurity and information
technology support to the Department of Defense and all 50
states, three territories and the District of Columbia.
Kevin Bessler reports on statewide issues in
Illinois for the Center Square. He has over 30 years of
experience in radio news reporting throughout the Midwest.
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