Foreign adversaries target campaigns, lobbying firms, and PACs every election cycle. IT Center delivers hardened cybersecurity, FARA-compliant data controls, and FEC audit-ready record-keeping — all for $300/computer user/month, flat-rate.
Political organizations carry a uniquely high-value target profile: strategy documents, donor lists, communications with officials, and intelligence on policy positions. Nation-state actors exploit this data for geopolitical advantage, disinformation campaigns, and foreign influence operations.
Russia — GRU Military Intelligence
Responsible for the 2016 DNC breach and Podesta email compromise. APT28 uses spear-phishing and credential harvesting to access campaign communications, internal polling data, and opposition research. Active in every major election cycle since 2014.
China — PRC Ministry of State Security
Targets U.S. political figures, think tanks, and lobbying firms to gather intelligence on trade policy, defense legislation, and foreign relations. Deploys web-based exploits and watering-hole attacks against political consulting networks and advocacy organizations.
Russia — SVR Foreign Intelligence Service
A more patient and sophisticated actor than APT28. Cozy Bear establishes persistent access within email systems and file shares to conduct long-term intelligence collection on U.S. foreign policy, sanctions deliberations, and congressional affairs — often undetected for months.
Iran — Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Focused on U.S. campaigns, think tanks, and individuals involved in Iran-related policy. APT35 conducts highly personalized social engineering — impersonating journalists, academics, and think tank staff to extract credentials and sensitive correspondence.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires meticulous record-keeping of foreign principal communications, disbursements, and activities. DOJ audits demand that these records remain confidential, tamper-evident, and accessible on demand. A breach of lobbying communications is not just an IT problem — it is a criminal exposure.
FEC regulations require campaigns and PACs to retain financial records for three years and produce them on audit request. Donor data is among the most sensitive PII your organization holds — and a prime target for foreign adversaries mapping U.S. influence networks.
Campaigns and lobbying firms operate under intense time pressure with lean staffing — the exact conditions adversaries exploit. These are the four entry points we harden first.
Donor names, employer info, and contribution amounts form a complete influence map. Unencrypted databases and cloud drives are the most frequent source of leaks that surface in foreign intelligence reports and opposition dossiers.
Campaign staff receive hundreds of emails daily from media, donors, and officials. APT actors craft hyper-personalized lures using public bio data — one click from an aide can expose an entire email archive to a foreign intelligence service.
State-sponsored groups maintain persistent operations against political organizations year-round, not only during elections. They collect intelligence on policy positions, internal disputes, and strategic plans for use months or years later.
Political operations rely on rotating volunteers and interns who access campaign systems from unmanaged personal devices. One compromised phone on your Wi-Fi or one unvetted personal laptop logged into NGP VAN can expose your entire voter contact database.
Every service below is included in our $300/computer user/month flat-rate plan — no add-on fees, no per-incident charges.
24/7 AI-powered threat detection tuned to APT TTPs used against political targets. We monitor for indicators associated with APT28, APT29, APT40, and APT35 — including credential stuffing, lateral movement, and data staging behaviors specific to political network intrusions.
Encrypted storage and immutable audit trails for all foreign principal records. We implement access tiering so FARA-regulated data is segregated from general operations, with logging that satisfies DOJ semi-annual filing requirements and audit requests.
End-to-end encrypted email, encrypted messaging platforms, and hardened VoIP for candidate, treasurer, and principal communications. We eliminate SMS and consumer apps from your sensitive workflows and replace them with auditable, encrypted channels.
Encrypted donor databases, FEC-compliant backup retention, and role-based access controls across NGP VAN, ActBlue, and related platforms. Ransomware-resilient backups ensure FEC-required records survive any attack and remain available for audit on demand.
We implement CISA's Shields Up guidance as a baseline security posture for all political clients: patching cadences, MFA enforcement, privileged access controls, and incident response readiness — updated continuously as CISA issues new advisories targeting political organizations.
AI-powered anti-phishing, DMARC/DKIM/SPF enforcement, and impersonation protection against spear-phishing campaigns targeting candidates, chiefs of staff, and registered lobbyists. Staff security awareness training is tailored to political sector social engineering tactics.
Our team understands the data flows, API integrations, and access patterns of the platforms your organization relies on — so we harden them without disrupting operations.
We offer a free, no-obligation security assessment for political offices, lobbying firms, campaigns, and PACs throughout Southern California. We will identify your current exposure, map your compliance gaps, and deliver a clear remediation plan — at no cost.