Center for Internet Security Introduces New Program to Support Election Security

RABET-V introduces enhanced security testing for non-voting technology that increases trust, saves time and money

EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y., December 8, 2023 —As the 2024 election cycle gets underway, the Center for Internet Security, Inc. (CIS®) is proud to announce the launch of its Rapid Architecture-Based Election Technology Verification (RABET-V) program. Building on a successful pilot program starting in 2020, RABET-V offers security testing for the election infrastructure that provides transparency, security, and efficiency for the technology used by election offices across the country.

RABET-V helps secure non-voting election systems- including ePollbooks, voter registration databases, and other products and software that support election administration. Unlike vote-casting and tabulation systems, this non-voting technology is typically connected to the internet and until now, has lacked a standardized process for verifying its security and reliability.

Increasing Transparency

Independent verification offered by the RABET-V initiative promotes transparency, offering crucial insights into the security of non-voting election technology.

Adapting to Change

Traditional verification processes are expensive and slow, making it difficult to adapt to evolving technology and security threats. RABET-V supports incremental product changes, significantly cutting verification time and costs. For election officials, this means faster access to verified systems with the latest security patches, bug fixes and feature updates.

Cost-Effective Verification

RABET-V streamlines future testing for mature organizations, eliminating redundant testing across jurisdictions and saving taxpayers money.

Community Backing

RABET-V has emerged as a transformative force, ensuring the security, transparency, and efficiency of non-voting election technology,” said Marci Andino, CIS senior director of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (EI-ISAC®). "And the support it has received from the election community reaffirms our commitment to continuous improvement and a brighter future for election infrastructure across the nation.”

For more details about RABET-V, including how this increases trust in election technology across the country, visit our blog.

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About CIS

The Center for Internet Security, Inc. (CIS®) makes the connected world a safer place for people, businesses, and governments through our core competencies of collaboration and innovation. We are a community-driven nonprofit, responsible for the CIS Critical Security Controls® and CIS Benchmarks™, globally recognized best practices for securing IT systems and data. We lead a global community of IT professionals to continuously evolve these standards and provide products and services to proactively safeguard against emerging threats. Our CIS Hardened Images® provide secure, on-demand, scalable computing environments in the cloud. CIS is home to the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (MS-ISAC®), the trusted resource for cyber threat prevention, protection, response, and recovery for U.S. State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial government entities, and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (EI-ISAC®), which supports the rapidly changing cybersecurity needs of U.S. election offices. To learn more, visit cisecurity.org or follow us on X: @CISecurity.