Security. Unfortunately was pulled away from washington on business. Bob lasky the acting deputy for the National Protection commonly known in our election world as an ppd. As acting deputy under secretary they oversee federal protective service. He also works with the deputy under Cyber Security in communications to ensure a holistic approach. Prior to serving in these current roles he was appointed as a Deputy Assistant secretary he helps lead the core needed efforts. The National Preparedness and rapid recovery in the event of an attack. They have seen it about a doll. It has been a pleasure to get to know you. And i look forward to seeing it today. And seeing what is coming about in the coming months appearing for 2018. Thank you. So one of the things we had accomplished over the last year and half weve taught them more about the department of Homeland Security. The state Elections Committee this is something that we talked about a lot. We saw in spring of 2016 and 2016 we were not perhaps fully aware of that. There was an elevated threat. That is when the partnership started. Started working regularly to get out as much as we could about what we understood. We took it seriously. What we saw during that time the russian government was interested in in at least taking exploratory activity if not more. And to cause a degree of arrest. That was made public in january of this year. To change the capability. That may not be the only concern we have. I could be a threat coming from somewhere else. It makes it a National Security issue. Speaking with experts that we have done over the last couple of years. There are vulnerabilities in our system. And there is opportunities to close those. But there is a threat out there and theyre still vulnerabilities that we need to address. With that in mind in january of this year. Secretary johnson as he was they are an asset. They are an essential system. They enable our democracy to work. Something that we need to as a country need to collectively take seriously to protect there is a National Security challenge to our election. Recognizing that. We put renewed attention and even more attention on taking steps to secure that election. In support of very clearly of the state and local officials who have the responsibility for administrating those elections. Over the last nine to ten months that the department of Homeland Security has been very deliberate in taking activities to strengthen our resources. Put them in support of enhancing state and local government officials as they educate elections. They take steps in three areas. Building partnerships, sharing upper information. In building and making available tools for that. Let me talk about those three areas. In the realm of partnerships there is a truism in Disaster Response that you do not want to be exchanging business cards in the middle of a hurricane. You should know each other. You should Work Together with each other. Relationships had been built. Unfortunately, in 2016 there was a little bit of having to build the relationship at the same time we were in the middle of a bit of a hurricane as it pertains to russian activity. And what we have done and have been able to do over the last year is change that. We built the relationships and the structures. We know each other. The department of Homeland Security is in a much better position to work with. In the Election Community to respond to any threats or threats that emerge Going Forward. We have done that through pretty structured mean. They stood up at Election Task force. As our bellybutton with dhs. And to work closely with the fbi in the Intelligence Community to promote an inner agency front within that. Weve also done then gone through the process of working with particularly the National Association of secretary of state and the local government to stand up a structure where collectively dhs concert at the table with representatives of state and local government. Through the bureaucratic naming. Its called the government core nader council. We meet regularly. They had responsibilities to help secure our elections. This is different than a lot of others. There are 27 members 24 of them represent state and local governments there are five leaders through the represent state and local governments. We created this within the government. As because we think it is an important aspect of how we are going to take on the security challenge. They are working to set priorities will talk to some of those. Publish a plan Going Forward it will be widely available to the Election Community. It will put us on the same page across governments. We are now in the process of working with industry to stand up a council. It will bring the manufacturers and Software Providers the facilitators and others to the table so that we can have security conversations within the industry. A lot of the state and local government officials they are continuing to Work Together. Information sharing. That is really where it needs to start. They need to taking whatever we can to get the best information and give the information to individuals who can make security decisions based on the information. That includes making sure that the intelligence collections requirements are based on the need to monitor whether there is for an activity to take on and do things to cause average consequences. We have really pushed on getting the Intelligence Community looking at this question and then once it does some things maybe some of that comes back in a classified manner. So the people can take security steps. Because of that weve made progress in working to sponsor and encourage state and local Election Officials are to head security clearances so that at least some portion of them can get this information and can have that contextual information where the threat may be shipping and then make security decisions based on that. We have made available in 50 states plus some of the key staff the ability to get security clearance and then working their way through the process. Weve also made it available to the government officials. There will be more opportunity to share contextual information about where they will be looking to cause trouble but the elections. The other thing we are doing on that front. We have improved our protocol. We have a Better Process in place if we learn something the fbi learned something one state learn something about another state. We have the process to make sure that information gets to senior state Election Officials much more quickly. There was a lot of media attention. The pace by which the threat into the hands of the senior state Election Officials. We will improve on that. We will always prioritize getting security information out to the people to the people who can make security decisions. Thats the first priority. I wanted talk about whats happening all over the place if it doesnt involve a security decision but certainly if somethings going on in the state they deserve to know that. And can make security decisions based on information. We are doing that in terms of information sharing. State officials are working with local officials to deal with this question. Sometimes what happens might be learned by local official. And they need to interchange a. There are some best practices out there. One of the government courting councils his chariot and effort to look at can there be a template for 50 states to consider. Sometimes the information comes because someone is doing something on the state and local system and they see an anomaly that may have contextual purpose elsewhere. That is some of the progress we made on information sharing. The third area is things that weve done in terms of enhancing our tools. With the Critical Infrastructure endeavors devastation. Multiple of them. We need to prioritize our resources to take on this threat. We have done so. There had been a backlog of availability for us to support those. It is our most thorough handson support to state and local Election Officials. To understand their system in the state to get hands on in the system when asked and to make security recommendations. We had had a reported backlog of this. We have the ability now to meet all the state requests that we had been receiving and we have done three already. Weve another 11 request. We will hit those by the middle of april and we believe that we want all of the rest of the states to sign it. We will be able to do those on site. That is a significant shift of her own resources. And we are very pleased to have done so. We actually then have assessment tools and other cyber more and molar abilities. That can be done. That are handson. We are in the process of developing the list of resources pocketing it and making it available and promoting it with the 9,000 jurist actions around the country. We do want to see some cyber assessment and to strengthen the Cyber Security all the way down to every local jurisdiction. Finally, we had working with our multistate information center. We fund the government courting counsel. We had instituted a pilot where we had established that information sharing analysis. Publish things in technical updates. Make them available to state and local investment. And more resources in terms of sensors. Network detention centers. That is giving more handson technical ability to defend and ascertain if there is anonymous activity going on. That is where we are right now partnership is gritty is getting stronger. Now it is a matter of being ready and seen it ready. And tracking the information. If the threat changes and if the threat gets more significant. If they change. We have the ability to have that out quickly. Security decisions can be made. Then we can make tools available to support those. Im very pleased with the amount of work and effort we had put in the relationships that we built over the last few minutes. We have a lot of work. We to state serious over the next year. It may or may not manifest itself in different way. We have to treat this as a National Security issue. We will continue to do so on doing this. I think we want to continue this conversation and thats why we are happy to be here. Thank you. Bob is graciously agreed to set in the hot seat. I feel like a little bit like oprah. There is prizes under your chair. Lets start off with a question its been a year since the designation and we are less than a year until the 2018 election. Obviously you know weve talked openly about the challenges with that designation and the reaction. What have you done in the last year to build relationships to engage those folks. And then what is a plan moving forward. Where do you want to be a relationship wise. In addition to the structural work that we have done of trying to set up councils and have the ability to make decisions. We are active participants on the conference circuit in terms of the annual meeting. We will be a regular presence there. We have also one of the things we have within dhs was we have Security Advisors around the country. One of the things that i did in august was to set up meetings with each of the secretary of state. They are based out in the region who have a staff of people they are doing one oneonone sit downs here is what heres how you work with dhs. We love everybody. Doing that and having the retail level. Is useful in terms of the National Level and getting through the Critical Infrastructure conversation. I think it was important from a National Security perspective. I have no problem with the secretary of state or verify and then trust. And so it is consistency. We need to follow through. I would like to have this conversation a year from now. To that end he built a relationship but in the end as you said its about the value been brought. Being brought. What are the key milestones that dhs has that in october or november of this year you want to hit. There is to some extent a milestone we will be tracking along the line. That is an easy metric to track. How many states are taking advantage of this. We would like to have that. The harder measure to understand is part of doing these sort of assessments for the purpose of individual state level decisionmaking is their common vulnerabilities. As we do more of these those are the kind of things that we will be bringing to the entire community. I am not here to say about those but finally the speed of information getting out to partners and should i have another piece of information about the change of tactics of an adversary and we have the ability to get it to the right people in a timely fashion and to set up those metrics. As far as the relationship and services, as your folks have gone out and met with the state and local, what is the feedback back to do just about the Services Provided that was a Relationship Building . You know, i still think its largely positive with, you know will preserve a little bit of judgment in a couple of areas where people on that eager to have that relationship. I think it is improved and ultimately the feedback what we have seen is the communities, the states, the localities where we have actually done more direct support, helping them understand their systems, doing formal assessments, participating in their exercises. For example, we participate with new york state Governor Cuomo has made this a priority of his to participate and the feedback has been better with the states weve done more with than once we havent which suggest to me something positive when you get the service and get past the politics and policy discussions to actually the Security Service your finding value in that and for the most part and when theyre not, its been back and we adjust over the services. And thats valuable to us. I know that last year you all had a presence and work with new jersey and virginia for their big elections as well as alabama for their recent Senate Special elections. What did you learn in that process and what did you do so if im on election official and im in a state with an election coming up what should i expect about what that looks like in the types of interaction and services youre providing . Here again here taking advantage of our Security Advisors. Cyber Security Advisors in each state will be a little different but in all three we have locally based Security Advisors who met with Election Officials in advance of the election and talk to challenges and any mate they want to look out for on election day and time that information back to Cyber Security center to help look for that activity and if youre looking at any anomalies going on so better understood where there could be security concerns in new jersey and more formally in alabama than working with the states we studied the system and and we were there and had a presence in relationship but it was a little less pre work when in for it but the key thing is that on election day we understand the state will be concerned about helping to look for there and hopefully theyll pass on to us and get the fbi involved in the conversation, as well, so that the moment something happens we can address it. What is interesting about election Cyber Security of course and Election Security in general part of what youre doing it may not be that you actually worried that much about what happened through cyber as well as as much as how thats been understand by the boating community. One of the building this relationship brand is that if anything gets reported that his happened we are prepared to join and talk about how that will be communicated and if i Something Weird gets reported and that message has to get out that is important and i think that will have real meaning and confidence of someone going to vote on a day and trust. Been a year since the designation was made and what are the major Lessons Learned that the department is taking and has anything surprised you ands far as getting involved . I worked with senior officials and i assume that people like working with dhs and you know, it took time and it was worthwhile and different sectors and Risk Management so i have confidence in that process. One of the things i appreciate couple Different ThingsElection Officials arent that different and are very much based on that incident is the election whether its once or twice a year and so they are used to thinking in terms of working through a bad day and that bad day may not be called an adversary but when we compensate you have to game plan for a bad day theyre like oh, we do that all the time and so that culture may not have the same security language but the culture taking seriously is that a little bit of the system could have been troubled that cascades in terms of process is something that in hindsight i should have appreciated but i learned to appreciate so it made it easier to have those conversations we are all up here because the adversaries of the nationstate are trying to cause trouble in there is a seriousness of purpose and commitment to it. Lastly, you have a captive audience in this room and what message would you like to send to them building this partnership and working with them . Again, please take advantage of the expertise and tools we have to help give you advice on security or reinforcement and imperatives of security. You know your systems better than we do but you know, if theres hope that we can give, please feel free to take advantage of it. You know one of the things we will make recommendations but those recommendations are designed not just for state Election Officials to make a decision but also to help communicate throughout each state has different systems of government and executive branches is an all around the country and we are trying to give tools to help them to make arguments that resources need to be invested should this issue be serious. The more giveandtake about what is useful to have them get the support they need to execute their mandates is important. Thank you. Thank you for taking time to be with us and talk to the audience. I put it very much. Good afternoon everyone