DNC Tech Chief Says no Successful Hacking Attempts Were Seen in the Midterms

“We have to be on the phone all the time with the social media platforms being like ‘we need you to take down this account down, we need you to investigate this account right now,” Krikorian said.

Just days before the midterm elections, Twitter deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts seeking to discourage voting in the midterms after they were flagged by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

“I don’t believe they’re doing enough now,” Krikorian said. “We’re only 10 percent down a very long road in order to make these platforms secure.”

Though the Republican National Committee also has their own chief technology officer, Krikorian said they barely interact, relying on the government agencies to act as a bridge — though the two teams did send each other election night goodies, including cupcakes and liquor.

“Sadly we don’t work with them as closely as we would like,” Krikorian said. “I think that’s super complicated. There’s a lot of obviously suspicions, a lot of questions of what that outreach would look like.”

Krikorian now has a 35-person team at the DNC that works not only on cybersecurity but also misinformation. But he said the DNC is “vastly outgunned” and wants the government and the private sector to step up.

“I absolutely want the federal government to be doing this. This is not a partisan issue, election security should be a nonpartisan issue this is the basis of the American democracy,” Krikorian said, though he noted the DNC and the Republican National Committee have good relationships with the government agencies.

He added: “This political climate we live in is obviously a very tenuous one so there is some question and trust over how the federal government could approach this, but this should be a non partisan issue.”