As authoritarian regimes escalate their cyberattacks against democratic nations, democracies must work together to shore up their defenses and secure elections going forward, former government officials said Thursday at a forum on election security.

The forum, hosted by Auburn University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., featured a dialogue between former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on the challenges of securing elections and lessons learned from previous cyberattacks.