After being hacked in 2016, the Democrats were determined not to let the old scenario repeat in this year's important elections.

"I think we're ready. We have the right plans and personnel in place," said Bob Lord, the Democratic chief security officer, of our efforts to prevent cyber attacks and information campaigns.

Lord turned to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in January 2018 after leaving Yahoo, where he helped executives recover data from the world's top two major cyber attacks.

However, Lord and his team still face major challenges.

Although election cyber attacks in the US this year are not common, the DNC is concerned about the risk of a cyberattack on election day, which could disrupt the White House race, as well as the Senate

DNC has made every effort to ensure that all employees comply with security guidelines, think network security when making decisions, and build a technological foundation.

"It's a long process to make sure everyone, every process and technology is in compliance with good security practices," Lord said.

He added that the process was not easy, but his valuable experience dealing with cybersecurity issues at Yahoo and Twitter helped him a lot.

DNC refused to provide details of security updates for security reasons.

"We cannot completely prevent attacks or intrusions," said Nellwyn Thomas, DNC's chief technology officer.

DNC can be considered as the operating center of the Democratic Party, but it is only a link in the entire system of the Democratic Party.

Unlike the Silicon Valley companies that Lord used to protect, the individual state party committees and agencies were separate organizations.

Due to their inability to control these agencies, the DNC's security team provides only confidential advice, and at the same time establishes a specialized center so that local election officials can seek help when needed.

DNC also regularly requires partners to report suspicious activities so that the committee has a better understanding of external threats.

One of the Lord's most remarkable achievements is the compact security checklist that DNC distributes to its partners.

The Lord's team also performed "ad hoc tests" on Democrats' cyber security activities.

Like every other anti-cyber security organization, DNC also relies on major technology companies to prevent bad actors from taking advantage of social media platforms.

DNC's security team has a "good relationship" with partners at Facebook, Twitter and many other social media companies in terms of analyzing and removing misinformation, or campaigns with foreign influence,

"Despite a pretty good relationship, we still feel that many bigger problems have not been resolved," Lord said.

In July, the DNC criticized Facebook for failing to comply with its 2020 election protection commitments after letting "Russian hackers" attack the platform in 2016. The committee argued that Mark Zuckerberg's company "did not.

In addition to concerns about content censorship, Lord is also interested in enabling basic security features.

"Your goal should not be to make two-layer security easier for your users, but to be easier for the users of the rival company," Lord said in a discussion at a conference call.

However, he complains that technology companies don't think about security that way at all.