Securing Elections

guest · Oct 21, 2019

Facebook reveals preparations for UK election
October 21, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50128055

Facebook has set out extra measures for fighting the spread of disinformation at the next UK election.
These include extending its partnership with fact checker Full Fact and improving the ad library in which political ads are archived.

In addition, it announced separate plans for the 2020 US Presidential vote, including a way to track how much each candidate spends on Facebook ads.
It also confirmed it continues to be a target for foreign influence campaigns.
Mr Allan stopped short of saying that the extra measures would be sufficient to prevent election interference in the next UK election.

"While we can never say for sure that there won't be issues in future elections, we are confident that we're better prepared than ever," he said.
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Facebook: Helping to Protect the 2020 US Elections

guest · Oct 23, 2019

FBI Updates Initiative to Protect U.S. Elections from Cyberattacks
October 23, 2019
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...ve-to-protect-us-elections-from-cyberattacks/

FBI has updated and expanded the resources and tools designed to help political campaigns, private businesses, and individuals to better understand and mitigate risks posed by foreign entities' cyber intrusions and disinformation efforts during the 2020 U.S. election season.

This information is shared through the Protected Voices initiative that raises awareness of potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities, thus making it possible for political campaign managers, staff, and IT directors to prevent foreign actors from hijacking their message.

"We’ve created these Protected Voices videos to showcase the methods these adversaries might use, and to help campaigns practice good cyber hygiene, because the foundation of election security is cybersecurity," Director of the FBI Chris Wray says.
Elections systems security
The FBI, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), has released a series of short videos containing both guidance and information to help political campaigns identify defend their computer networks from foreign intelligence efforts as part of this effort initially launched in 2018.
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guest · Oct 30, 2019

Threat to US elections in 2020 is not limited to Russia
October 30, 2019
https://apnews.com/1af297b4625c4dd585274dfaf1c39aeb

Russia interfered in the 2016 election and may try to sway next year’s vote as well. But it’s not the only nation with an eye on U.S. politics.

The anxiety goes beyond the possibility that U.S. adversaries could directly affect election results: The mere hint of foreign meddling could undermine public confidence in vote tallies, a worrisome possibility in a tight election.

“Unfortunately, it’s not just Russia anymore. In particular, China, Iran, a couple of others, studied what the Russians did in 2016,” said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
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hawki · Oct 30, 2019

"Twitter to Ban Political Advertising Globally,...

Twitter Inc. will ban political advertising from its platform, Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday,...."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...low-organic&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business

Minimalist · Nov 1, 2019

Pentagon again deploying cyber personnel abroad to gather intel for 2020 elections

The Pentagon once again is sending cyber personnel overseas to gather intelligence to help protect the 2020 presidential elections against foreign interference, the U.S. Embassy in Montenegro announced this week.
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https://www.cyberscoop.com/pentagon-deploying-cyber-personnel-abroad-gather-intel-2020-elections/

guest · Nov 2, 2019

General Election 2019: Facebook takes down 'political' advertising
November 2, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50270727

The social media firm said the ads "were not correctly labelled" and did not include the obligatory disclaimer.
Each of the ads in the campaign, first reported by HuffPost UK, said the government was investing "up to £25m" in a named town.
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guest · Nov 3, 2019

NSW Labor headquarters reported for possible data breach
November 2, 2019
https://www.afr.com/politics/nsw-la...rted-for-possible-data-breach-20191101-p536kq

The NSW Labor party could be dragged into the troubles of an embattled Sydney mayor after he was accused of breaching data privacy laws and misusing the electoral roll.
Ryde mayor Jerome Laxale was reported to the NSW Electoral Commission after sending a seemingly innocuous birthday letter to a 90-year-old ratepayer and trumpeting it on Facebook.

Liberal councillor Jordan Lane contacted the NSW Electoral Commission in September after he noticed Mr Laxale had sent out birthday messages.
Against the rules
The Electoral Commission confirmed in an email to Mr Lane that this was not permitted, as candidates could only use the personal information of those on the roll before an election.

"My concern is that potentially more than 50,000 private citizens’ data (who are enrolled to vote in Ryde) has been breached," Mr Lane said in an email to the Electoral Commission.
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guest · Nov 3, 2019

Free Tools Boost 2020 Election Security, But Not Enough
More companies than ever are offering low-cost security services for election bureaus and campaigns
November 3, 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/free-tools-2020-election-security/

Free and low-cost election cybersecurity tools are gaining visibility, though, as a way for small or under-funded election groups to make some meaningful improvements.
But in addition to their limitations for dealing with deeper problems, it's unclear how widely these low-cost tools are adopted, perhaps in part because it's difficult to determine which offerings are safe and effective.

"I’ve heard election officials in particular say that they are bombarded with offers from private vendors to help with cybersecurity, and often feel like they have no basis for determining who to trust," says Lawrence Norden, deputy director of the Brennan Center's Democracy Program at New York University School of Law.
Campaigns and election organizations can still make cybersecurity improvements in the final year before Election Day. But even choosing the right free tool won't resolve the deeper, more expensive vulnerabilities still dogging US election infrastructure.
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guest · Nov 5, 2019

Steyer staffer resigns after downloading Kamala Harris info in data breach
November 5, 2019
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...-downloading-kamala-harris-info-data-n1076356

A staff member for Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer used access he had previously been granted while working for the South Carolina Democratic Party to download data about rival Kamala Harris' campaign, state party officials said Monday.
The South Carolina Post & Courier was the first to report the breach.

The state party worked with the DNC to disable Sims' access and sent him a cease-and-desist letter, demanding that he delete all the downloaded information.
The Steyer campaign said that Sims had deleted all volunteer data from his computer and informed the DNC that he had done so. Sims' computer was also wiped by the campaign’s internal IT department as a precaution, according to the Steyer team.
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ronjor · Nov 5, 2019

U.S. government sees no evidence of hacking in Tuesday's elections

November 5, 2019
(Reuters) - Voting in U.S. state and local elections on Tuesday showed no evidence of successful tampering by any foreign government, the Justice Department and six U.S. security agencies said.
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guest · Nov 5, 2019

A Plan to Engage Hackers in Election Security
November 4, 2019
https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/11/plan-engage-hackers-election-security/161056/

The Information Technology-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC) is evaluating the feasibility of creating a coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) program that could alert voting system companies about weaknesses.

Despite the difficulties in figuring out a solution, cybersecurity experts say CVD programs should not be optional for voting system vendors given the nature of what is at stake.
The point of developing a CVD program is to ensure both sides are working together to communicate information about vulnerabilities, Algeier said.
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hawki · Nov 7, 2019

"How a fake town and real hackers battle test officials for Election Day 2020

In the fictional American town of “Adversaria," federal and local law enforcement officials battled against hackers who used a deep bag of tricks to disrupt election day..."

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/securi...orning Rundown Nov 7&utm_term=Morning Rundown

guest · Nov 10, 2019

Senator wants Pentagon cybersecurity review of mobile voting app Voatz
November 8, 2019
https://statescoop.com/senator-wants-pentagon-cybersecurity-review-mobile-voting-app-voatz/

A leading U.S. Senate voice on cybersecurity issued a letter Thursday to the Defense Department asking the Pentagon to audit Voatz, the mobile-voting app that’s been used to collect ballots from deployed military members from a growing number of states since last year.

In a two-page letter addressed to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote that he is “very concerned” that Voatz’s developers have not sufficiently protected the app against threats of hacking from foreign adversaries.
Wyden also wrote that he is requesting the Pentagon look under Voatz’s hood because the company has not been forthright in explaining why its technology should be entrusted with the levers of democracy.
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guest · Nov 11, 2019

Is Aotearoa ready for online voting?
The University of Auckland's Rizwan Asghar discusses whether it's time NZ embraced online voting
November 11, 2019
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/11/11/899544/is-aotearoa-ready-for-online-voting

Voting via the internet would certainly be simple and convenient. You could open a browser or a smartphone app and cast your vote with a few clicks. It could increase turnout because a vote could be cast easily, at any time, from anywhere.

Estonia is one country which is already using online voting, including for parliamentary elections since 2005.
Once voting is complete, homomorphic encryption (a particular type of encryption used to protect privacy) is used to add up all the votes and the final total decrypted to release the final result.
There are mathematical proofs that these online cryptographic schemes are secure, but a voter’s device might not be, in particular when there is dedicated malware that can change the vote without the voter’s knowledge.

There have been reports on vulnerabilities around voter devices and voting servers, but we have to assume there are likely to be unique challenges for any country new to online voting.
Clearly, there are numerous challenges that must be overcome before online voting can be considered a genuine option in New Zealand - and we can learn a lot from Estonia.
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guest · Nov 12, 2019

General election: Labour Party says it has been hit by 'large-scale cyber attack'
November 12, 2019
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-says-it-has-been-hit-by-large-scale-cyber-attack-11859823

A party spokeswoman said the cyber attack "failed" because of their "robust security systems" and that she was confident no data breach occurred.

"Security procedures have slowed down some of our campaign activities, but these were restored this morning and we are back up to full speed," she said.
Sky News understands it was a Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack, prevented by Cloudfare - the company Labour uses for its web security.

"The important thing to know about this is this is not an extremely cunning, sophisticated kind of attack - it's crude, it's brute force, it's actually quite easy to do.
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guest · Nov 12, 2019

Election Interference Notification Protocols Unveiled
White House Describes Framework for Notifying Public of 2020 Election Interference
November 11, 2019
https://www.govinfosecurity.com/election-interference-notification-protocols-unveiled-a-13396

The White House has developed protocols for notifying the public of nation-state hacking or other interference during the 2020 presidential election cycle, according to several news reports

The framework describes what the government will consider when it determines if it should notify the public of an attack, according to a report in The Hill.
The framework notes that decisions about whether to provide notification "will take into account the need to protect sensitive sources and methods necessary to protect national security and to avoid interfering in investigations," according to the Hill.

An administration official told the Associated Press that any public notification of election interference would need to be weighed against releasing sensitive intelligence as well as spreading disinformation.
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hawki · Nov 12, 2019

mood said: ↑

General election: Labour Party says it has been hit by 'large-scale cyber attack'
November 12, 2019
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-says-it-has-been-hit-by-large-scale-cyber-attack-11859823
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"Hackers launch second cyber attack against UK Labour Party

LONDON (Reuters) - Hackers attacked Britain’s opposition Labour Party for the second time in two days on Tuesday, sources told Reuters, flooding its web services with malicious traffic in an attempt to force them offline just weeks ahead of a national election....

One of the sources said it was unclear if it was the same hackers or a copycat attack but there was currently nothing to link either incident to a foreign state..."

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-b...-attack-against-uk-labour-party-idUKKBN1XM19I

guest · Nov 12, 2019

Report: Election vendors are ‘prime targets,’ need oversight
November 12, 2019
https://apnews.com/4fe79d4ef9ff487f97f0bc3981cf7fd0

The private companies that make voting equipment and build and maintain voter registration databases lack any meaningful federal oversight despite the crucial role they play in U.S. elections, leaving the nation’s electoral process vulnerable to attack, according to a new report.

The Brennan Center for Justice on Tuesday issued the report, which calls on Congress to establish a framework for federal certification of election vendors.
The report’s co-author Lawrence Norden acknowledged it was too late for any of this to happen in time for the 2020 presidential election.

“Even if (Congress) had the will, it couldn’t be passed in time,” said Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center. “This is another security vulnerability that Congress hasn’t addressed.”
“Private vendors’ central role in American elections makes them prime targets for adversaries,” the report said. “Yet it is impossible to assess the precise level of risk associated with vendors or how that risk impacts election security.”

The report notes that just three companies provide more than 80% of voting systems in the U.S. and that other systems like voter registration databases and electronic pollbooks are also supplied and, in some case, maintained by vendors.
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Brennan Center for Justice: A Framework for Election Vendor Oversight
(PDF - 363 KB): https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/2019_10_ElectionVendors.pdf

Krusty · Nov 12, 2019

Cyber attacks attempt to take down UK Labour and Conservative parties' websites

Britain's Conservative Government and opposition Labour Party have both been hit by large-scale cyber attacks against their websites just weeks before millions of citizens go to the polls in the national election.

British security services had warned that Russia and other countries could use cyber attacks or divisive political messages on social media to attempt to disrupt the December 12 election.

The attacks appear to not be related, with two people with knowledge of the attack against the Government saying that hackers attempted to force their websites offline.

That attack began shortly before 4pm on Tuesday (local time) and lasted for less than an hour without managing to take down any party websites, the sources said.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11...it-by-cyber-attack-ahead-of-election/11699230

guest · Nov 13, 2019

NSW iVote system may have been vulnerable to voter fraud at election
Susceptible to Scytl flaw uncovered earlier this year
November 14, 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-...-vulnerable-to-voter-fraud-at-election-533940

The online voting system used by NSW was vulnerable to a flaw that potentially allowed undetectable voter fraud to take place in the 2019 state election, despite reassurances from the NSW Electoral Commission that the system was unaffected.
That's the key take away in a new report [pdf] from renowned cryptographic researcher Dr Vanessa Teague that says iVote is susceptible to a previously identified flaw in its verification process that could allow the verification of votes to be tricked, resulting in an incorrect count.

Teague, who has long called for iVote’s source code to be made publically available for testing before elections, believe the findings are just another reason why the code should be made available.

“Although finding out now is better than never finding out at all, it would have been much better for the integrity of the New South Wales election if these issues had been identified and corrected before the system was entrusted with more than 200,000 votes,” she said.
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guest · Nov 15, 2019

Notorious hackers claim responsibility for Labour cyber attacks
November 14, 2019
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ad-ddos-corbyn-general-election-a9202006.html

Following the attacks, Lizard Squad claimed to be in control of powerful tool known as a botnet that is capable of carrying out such attacks.
Cyber security researcher Jonathan Miles said the group has previously advertised its DDoS-for-hire service on Twitter and “may have been hired by unknown entities to undertake the attack”.

“This attack, if proven to be associated with Lizard Squad, would represent a significant shift in focus and indicated that they have a means to undertake successful DDoS attacks – a concern in the run up to the general election," Mr Miles told The Independent.
Lizard Squad denied that the attacks were commissioned by a third party, however the timing of the attacks mean such a possibility can not be ruled out.
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guest · Nov 20, 2019

ICO probes Brexit Party for failure to hand over voters' data
November 20, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3084077/ico-brexit-party-investigation

The Information Commissioners's Office (ICO) ) is investigating the Brexit Party over its failure to hand over voters' personal data.
As per Sky News, the UK's data watchdog is looking into complaints that the party did not hand over information through the subject access request (SAR) system.

Subject access requests allow people to find out what information an organisation holds on them under GDPR legislation, which requires that users receive a response within a month, free of charge.
"During the European elections, there was a coordinated attempt by campaigners to flood the Brexit Party with Subject Access Requests," a Brexit Party spokesperson whined.

The ICO has given the Brexit Party until 22 November to answer the data requests, according to Sky News.
"We will however, be closely monitoring how personal data is being used during political campaigning and making sure that all parties and campaigns are aware of their responsibilities under data protection and direct marketing laws."
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ronjor · Nov 21, 2019

CISA and VotingWorks release open source post-election auditing tool

By Catalin Cimpanu for Zero Day | November 21, 2019
New Arlo open-source tool will help state officials verify electronically-tallied ballots.
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Daveski17 · Nov 21, 2019

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-b...-attack-against-uk-labour-party-idUKKBN1XM19I

“But if this is a sign of things to come in this election, I feel very nervous about it all,” he said. “Because a cyberattack against a political party in an election is suspicious and something one is very worried about.” op cit

Stating the obvious, eh, Catweazle?

act8192 · Nov 30, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/...tion=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Vote totals in a Northampton County judge’s race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate’s zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong.
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Emails obtained by the city comptroller also found that E.S.&S. had influenced the writing of the city commissioners’ $22 million budget request for new election machines, tilting the process in favor of its machine, the ExpressVoteXL. The city eventually purchased the machines for $29 million in February.

“It showed a very, very flawed process,” said Rebecca Rhynhart, the city controller in Philadelphia. “I want to make sure, and the country should want to make sure, that our voting machines are the best they can be.”
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