The Federal Election Commission gave the go-ahead this week to a nonprofit organization seeking to offer free cybersecurity services to political campaigns, upending rules that typically consider such free services illegal campaign contributions.
The commission’s reasoning, in a nutshell, was that it ordinarily bans such services due to the possibility people might try to cash in on political favors later. But in this case, the risk of Russian and Chinese hackers running roughshod over the 2020 elections is far worse.
The nonprofit Defending Digital Campaigns, which made the appeal, now plans to run cybersecurity boot camps for staffers on presidential and congressional campaigns. The FEC also gave it the green light to negotiate free and reduced prices for cybersecurity services from companies to provide to the campaigns. The organization will also help share information about cybersecurity threats between campaigns and the U.S. government.