Amazon Web Services has teamed up with the nonprofit Defending Digital Campaigns organization to give federal political campaigns and committees access to cybersecurity services that can help protect sensitive data and other information assets.

Leo Zhadanovsky, chief technologist of education and worldwide public sector at AWS, wrote in a blog post published Thursday that national party and federal candidate committees can obtain cybersecurity platforms at minimal cost through a program authorized by the Federal Election Commission.

The partnership is offering 20 software suites at low to no cost to eligible committees that are active and registered for this year’s House and Senate midterm elections.

DDS received permission from the commission to offer subsidized internet security services and education and information sharing assistance during election campaigns as long as the nonprofit complies with campaign finance laws.

Zhadanovsky said cybersecurity tools will enable the benefitting parties to monitor their accounts, users and storage for potential threats and mitigate potential attacks.

Users can also discover and protect sensitive data through machine learning and pattern matching, the AWS executive noted.

He added that qualified parties may enroll their campaign in the program on the AWS website or by contacting the company’s public sector team.

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission listed 82 policy recommendations in March 2020 to implement a layered cyber deterrence strategy and transform how the U.S. government responds to cyberthreats and of these recommendations, 30.5 percent are now fully implemented.

CSC said in its 56-page report that 28 percent of its recommendations are nearing implementation and nearly 27 percent are on track to implementation.

According to the report, at least 2 percent of the commission’s recommendations are facing significant barriers to implementation and over 12 percent have been tagged as “progress limited” when it comes to implementation.

The commission’s 82 recommendations are organized into six pillars: reform the U.S. government’s structure organization for cyberspace; strengthen norms and nonmilitary tools; promote national resilience; reshape the cyber ecosystem; operationalize cybersecurity collaboration with the private sector; and preserve and employ the military instrument of national power.

CSC noted several improvements in the country’s cybersecurity in the past two years, including the passage of the Cyber Incident Reporting Act, the appointment of a national cyber director at the White House to oversee cyber strategy and policy implementation and the formation of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The report cited increased funding for federal cybersecurity initiatives, such as increasing CISA’s budget by over 25 percent to $2.59 billion in appropriations for fiscal year 2022.

The document also highlighted the transition to the CSC 2.0 project, which will continue to monitor and assess the implementation of the commission’s recommendations.

Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, is meeting with European Union officials on matters of Big Tech’s increased share in communication network builds and the potential national security risks from the social media platform TikTok.

In a speech published Monday, Carr expressed his support for the EU’s investigation into the two issues, which are part of an international effort to strengthen IT security.

Carr is in Brussels, Belgium to meet delegates from the European Commission, the European Parliament, EU states’ regulatory bodies and other stakeholders for a discussion of cybersecurity issues and goals.

He said he was “pleased” that EU and U.S. officials are considering changes that would require major technology companies to contribute a bigger share toward building faster communication networks, since they “benefit tremendously” from the infrastructure and “generate the lion’s share of network traffic” in the two regions.

On the subject of TikTok, Carr commented that the video-hosting service “functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data,” which have no security checks as they are accessed from inside China.

U.S. lawmakers are looking into the platform’s user data practices and links to the Chinese government.