Most Democratic presidential primary candidates have not yet taken a basic step in securing their email systems, even though the release of hacked emails contributed to the failure of Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House in 2016, according to a just-completed analysis by a security advocacy group, CNN reported on Wednesday.
Global Cyber Alliance said that, when the analysis was conducted last week, only four of the then-14 Democratic candidates' websites were using any type of a security protocol that helps guarantee that emails sent from campaign addresses are actually from the campaign.
The protocol - Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) - verifies that emails are from the websites they claim to be from.
Since then, and after CNN asked them about their lack of security, three more campaigns have implemented some form of security against hacking.
In addition, due to the publication of the story, the Democratic National Committee has moved up an online seminar for campaigns to Wednesday to show staffers how to implement the security features.
"There's lots of things you can do to help protect email," Global Cyber Alliance president and CEO Phil Reitinger told CNN. "Use of DMARC is really table stakes for whether you're serious about email security."
In 2017, the Department of Homeland security told all federal agencies to implement the protocol.