The state of Louisiana was hit with a ransomware attack on Nov. 18, making it the second attack on the state in the last six months. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, said on Twitter, “There is no anticipated data loss and the state did not pay a ransom.”

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) launched a new broadband initiative dubbed the Minority Broadband Initiative (MBI), that will focus on “solving broadband deployment challenges in vulnerable communities.”

The House Science Committee voted to approve H.R. 4990, the Election Technology Research Act of 2019, on Nov. 14.

The Brennan Center for Justice argued in a Nov. 12 report that the Federal government needs to hold election technology vendors to higher cybersecurity standards in order to receive Federal certification. To that end, the Center offered up a new framework for oversight.

A bill introduced by Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., on Nov. 8 would establish a new Center of Excellence (CoE) and fund elections systems research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The global shortage for cybersecurity professionals reached 4.07 million and the U.S. gap nears 500,000, according to last week’s report by the non-profit membership association for information security leaders, (ISC)2.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today released its Cyber Essentials guide, which it describes as “a starting point for small businesses and government agencies to understand and address cybersecurity risk as they do other risks.”

Several senators introduced legislation on Oct. 30 that aims to “strengthen local government cybersecurity defenses by switching to the .gov domain for websites and email addresses.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, on Oct. 31 signed Act 77 of 2019, a wide-ranging election reform bill that directs significant new spending to improve election security. The legislation will take effect prior to the state’s April 2020 primary election.