NIST Election Security Series 

DATA INTEGRITY AND RECOVERY 

Overview

Ransomware and other destructive attacks can paralyze a state or local election office, disrupting

the vital data records and systems relied upon to prepare for and conduct elections. Even

environmental disaster or equipment failure could seriously impair election activities. To ensure

the integrity and availability of our election systems, it is essential to protect data assets and be

able to restore compromised data quickly after an event. This guide provides an overview of how

to identify and protect against data integrity events and how to implement strategies to recover

from those incidents, maintain operations, and ensure the integrity of data critical to the election

infrastructure.

WHAT IS DATA INTEGRITY AND

RECOVERY?

Data integrity and recovery refers to the capabilities,

processes, and procedures used to defend against

unauthorized data corruption, modification, and

destruction. It includes:

• Identifying the critical data assets that may 

become targets of data integrity attacks 

and any vulnerabilities that facilitate these 

attacks

• Protecting these assets against the threat 

of data corruption and destruction using 

access control, secure storage, and vulnerability management

• Identifying and recovering from such attacks using integrity monitoring, logging, 

backups, contingency planning and incident response

HOW TO IMPLEMENT DATA

INTEGRITY AND RECOVERY

Election officials should help ensure data integrity and

recovery by establishing processes and procedures to:

• Inventory critical assets—Identify and inventory 

devices, data, and applications that may become 

targets of data integrity attacks. Prioritize these assets 

based on their criticality to election activities.

• Safeguard critical data—Limit access to critical 

assets through access controls and multi-factor 

authentication. Keep critical data in secure storage, 

protected against environmental damage, system 

failures, user errors and malicious actors. Identify and 

remediate system vulnerabilities that could lead to a 

loss of data integrity or system availability.

• Monitor and log—Log access to high-value data. 

Monitor, log, and report changes to critical data 

assets. Detect and report data corruption. Correlate 

cybersecurity attacks with all logged events. 

Analyze logs to detect anomalies in user activity and 

information. Enable file integrity protection for log files

and audit data.

• Backup data—Create backups of election records and 

data, physical and virtual systems, and con-figuration 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

files on a regular basis so that data can be restored 

quickly if incidents occur. Protect backups by 

encrypting media and storing it in secure locations. 

Test the backup and restoration processes periodically 

to ensure data and systems can be restored.

• Contingency planning and incident response—

Develop plans for responding to and recovering from 

data integrity events. Test contingency plan activities 

to validate recovery capabilities and to prepare staff 

for incidents. Plans should be updated regularly 

to remain current with system enhancements and 

organizational changes.

HOW DATA INTEGRITY AND

RECOVERY SUPPORT CYBERSECURITY

OBJECTIVES

Implementing data integrity and recovery measures can

help prevent malicious actors from corrupting critical

election data and interfering with the election process.

When incidents do occur, these measures can help

facilitate quick recovery, thereby mitigating potential

interference with election systems. The recommendations

in this guide can help address the broad range of risks to

the integrity of a voting system identified in the Voluntary

Voting System Guidelines 2.0. These recommendations

also help achieve NIST Cybersecurity Framework

outcomes supporting data integrity—identifying assets

(Subcategories ID.AM-1, ID.AM-2), protecting critical data

(ID.RA-1, PR.AC-1, PR.AC-4, PR.DS-1, PR.DS-2, PR.PT-4),

monitoring (PR.DS-6, PR.IP-1, PR.PT-1, DE.CM-1), data

backups (PR.IP-4), and contingency planning and response

activities (ID.RA-2, PR.IP-9, PR.IP-10, DE.AE-4).

Important Resources

• Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0 – a set of voluntary guidelines from the Election Assistance 

Commission for voting systems to meet standards for basic functionality, accessibility, and security.

• NIST Cybersecurity Framework – a voluntary framework, based on existing standards, guidelines, and 

practices, for reducing cybersecurity risks to critical infrastructure.

• NIST Special Publication (SP) 1800-25, Data Integrity Identifying and Protecting Assets Against 

Ransomware and Other Destructive Events – a cybersecurity practice guide, developed by NIST’s National 

Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), that demonstrates a practical solution for identifying and 

protecting against data integrity attacks.

• NIST SP 1800-11, Data Integrity Recovering from Ransomware and Other Destructive Events – a 

cybersecurity practice guide, developed by NIST’s NCCoE, that demonstrates a practical solution for 

monitoring, detecting, and recovering from a data corruption event.

• NIST SP 800-34, Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems – guidelines to implement 

interim measures to recover information system services after a disruption. 

To view other guides in the NIST Election Security Series, visit: vote.nist.gov