Campaign Guide to Cybersecurity – Morgan Wright

Cybersecurity has been regularly in the news over the past year but few campaigns are aware of how vulnerable they are to hacking or what to do to avoid it. Morgan Wright is here to fix that!

I’m really excited about this week’s episode, not just because we have a phenomenal guest to talk about the timely topic of cybersecurity and your campaign. It’s ALSO because this week marks the end of our first full year publishing this podcast!

Over these 52 episodes, I’ve had a blast and we’re not stopping anytime soon! The first month on iTunes, we had just 280 total downloads and, I’ll be honest, the fact that I had more than family members downloading made me ecstatic. Over the last three months however, we’ve averaged over 4000 downloads per month. Y’alls support has been wonderful and I’ve been really excited to hear from listeners who are running for office or helping on campaigns and putting lessons they’ve learned here to use in winning their races.

Something else that’s happened over the last year is an elevation of the discussion around cybersecurity and campaigns. This isn’t going to be an episode about how the Russians did or did not hack our elections. It’s going to be about helping you make your campaign a harder target.

Hacking/Phishing and identity theft are such huge problems right now and very few of the campaigns that I’ve observed are doing even an adequate job of protecting themselves.

This week’s guest is an internationally recognized expert on cybersecurity strategy, cyberterrorism, identity theft and privacy. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Government and is an advisor to the Congressional House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Morgan Wright’s landmark testimony before Congress on the failures of Healthcare.gov changed how the government collected personally identifiable information.

He’s a familiar face on Fox News and has made hundreds of appearances on TV, Radio print and the web. He’s worked with the State Department, spent 18 years in state and local law enforcement and developed solutions in defense, justice and intelligence for the largest technology companies in the world.

Morgan and I have become close friends over the last year or so and I’ve learned an incredible amount from him.

If you employ the lessons he shares today, your campaign will be confident in its security and you can focus on your goal of winning your election.

Links from the Podcast:

Connect with Morgan Wright on  Twitter and LinkedIn. Learn more about Morgan and cybersecurity at www.morganwright.us and www.identitysecurity.com.

Sign up for the FREE password course that Morgan mentioned on the show!

What You’ll Learn from Morgan Wright In This Episode:

[00:00] Podcast Introduction & Morgan Wright Bio

[02:50] Morgan’s background and how he became involved in Cybersecurity

[12:15] How to avoid being hacked like John Podesta

[18:55] Common cybersecurity problems for campaigns

[23:40] What are easy steps to avoid phishing attempts

[27:00] Tips for rock-solid password security

[42:50] Cybersecurity doesn’t have to be time-consuming

[44:05] Cybersecurity isn’t a partisan problem. EVERYBODY is at risk.

[50:10] Final cybersecurity war stories

[59:33] How to connect with Morgan Wright