Elections will come with cyber challenges, say experts

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The Information technology safety incident prevention body “Cert.lv” and the national security authorities estimate that the approaching 14th Saeima elections will come with provocations in cyberspace, deputy head of Cert Varis Teivāns told Latvian Television on August 4.

“No doubt there are forecasts that elections will come with provocation in cyberspace as well. In this direction, of course, we are working with both the national security authorities and the Central Election Commission. The readiness, security and sustainability of the information systems of the authorities concerned are being assessed,” he said.

He said that Latvia doesn't have e-elections which could be really influenced by cyber devices. "What we have electronically - the process of counting these votes is electronic and the process of presenting results on the Internet. This means that if there is any provocation in this cyberspace, we always have the opportunity, as a country, to return to the counting manually and to ensure that there is confidence in the results of the elections," he said.

He reminded that Latvia has been one of the targets of cyber-invaders since January, but since May's events at the Uzvaras Park Soviet Monument, Latvia has also been the main target of Russian-backed cyber-invaders. In Cert's assessment, Latvia has held up well.

Teivāns said that any resident of Latvia has the opportunity to protect himself using free services provided by “Cert.lv.” – a DNA firewall, available at dnsmuris.lv to the public sector and to all residents of Latvia. 

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