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Cook County Official Joins Cyber, DHS and National Security Leaders to Unveil First-Ever "Voting Infrastructure Security Plan"CHICAGO, Dec. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, DEFCON – the world's largest, longest running hacker conference – joined forces with the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy to host an event on cybersecurity and U.S. elections infrastructure. The event featured a panel of leaders from the cyber industry, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the national security community. It also featured the release of an "Election Security Plan" authored by Noah Praetz, Director of Elections with the Cook County, IL Clerk's Office. "Recently, we've seen a groundswell of bipartisan national security and cyber leaders uniting to frame the problem and highlight what Russia or other nefarious actors could do to our democracy," said Jake Braun, a cybersecurity lecturer at University of Chicago and DEFCON Voting Village representative who emceed the event. "Now its encouraging to see state and local leaders like Mr. Praetz – and many others who helped influence his plan – coming together to offer solutions. With the full funding and resources to do their job, there's no question they can better secure our democracy for 2018 and beyond." The event, which was held at the historic International House on University of Chicago's campus, represented the third in a series of high-profile events hosted by DEFCON to build awareness around cyber vulnerabilities facing our democracy. Earlier this year, in response to Russia's cyberattacks in 2016, DEFCON hosted a "Voting Village" demonstration at its annual conference in Vegas. The Village assembled 25+ pieces of election equipment – including voting machines and pollbooks still widely used in U.S. elections today – and made them accessible to 1000+ hackers who were encouraged to test the technology and expose cyber vulnerabilities for educational purposes. A full report on the Voting Village's findings is available online. To learn more, please visit the Voting Village on Twitter @VotingVillageDC. Media Contact: Jaclyn Houser, 517-420- 4372 or [email protected] View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cook-county-official-joins-cyber-dhs-and-national-security-leaders-to-unveil-first-ever-voting-infrastructure-security-plan-300568656.html SOURCE DEFCON |