Securing Elections

guest · Mar 12, 2019

Indonesia Says Election Under Attack From Chinese, Russian Hackers
March 12, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...om-chinese-russian-hackers?srnd=cybersecurity

Chinese and Russian hackers are attacking Indonesia’s voter data base in a bid to disrupt the country’s upcoming presidential election, according to a senior election commission official.

As Indonesia prepares for simultaneous presidential and legislative polls on April 17, authorities are facing a wave of cyber incursions they say may be aimed at discrediting the polling process.
“They try to hack our system,” Budiman said in an interview in Jakarta on Tuesday. “Not only every day. Almost every hour,” he said, adding it was unclear whether the motive was “to disrupt Indonesia” or to help one of the candidates win.
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guest · Mar 15, 2019

mood said: ↑

Researchers Find Critical Backdoor in Swiss Online Voting System
March 12, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...itical-backdoor-in-swiss-online-voting-system
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E-voting vendor Scytl criticises researchers that found vulnerability
March 14, 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/e-vo...s-researchers-that-found-vulnerability-520514

Scytl, the Spanish vendor behind Swiss and NSW e-voting software, has taken a swipe at researchers that uncovered a vulnerability in its source code allowing undetectable vote manipulation.
The researchers said the problem was “entirely consistent with a naive implementation of a complex cryptographic protocol by well-intentioned people who lacked a full understanding of its security assumptions and other important details.”

Scytl overnight took a swipe at the intentions of some researchers participating in the public intrusion test.
“These findings should not be used to create controversy or adverse reactions towards online voting, but instead to foster a constructive dialogue with experts and, together, enhance the security of our electoral system.”
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Krusty · Mar 15, 2019

mood said: ↑

NSW’s iVote could face renewed scrutiny after Swiss sVote flaw revealed
March 12, 2019
https://www.computerworld.com.au/ar...wed-scrutiny-after-swiss-svote-flaw-revealed/
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stapp said: ↑

We still mark bits of paper with an X in UK and place it in a box with a slot on the top. All votes are then counted in a hall by individuals in full view of everyone.
It still works
Also we have the 'modern way' you can use and vote by post
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Thankfully, we can still go in and number our choices on paper. I wouln't be electronically voting while ever I have a choice.

guest · Mar 17, 2019

DARPA is building a $10 Million open-source voting system
DARPA to develop an unhackable open-source voting system
March 16, 2019
https://www.techworm.net/2019/03/darpa-open-source-voting-system.html

The US Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has granted a $10 million contract to design and build an open-source secure voting system, reports Motherboard. This system will not only be invulnerable to certain kinds of hacking, but it will allow voters to ensure that their votes are properly recorded.

“Our goal is to make this so that the hardware is blocked against all of these various types of attack from the external world. If this is successful, and if the software put on top is equally successful, then it means people can’t hack in and … alter votes. [...]"
DARPA promises the system to be transparent and fully verifiable by developers and external researchers. Since the software is open-source, it will allow developers to also check for bugs or vulnerabilities.
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guest · Mar 18, 2019

Ukraine Ready to Take on Russian Election Hackers
March 18, 2019
https://www.securityweek.com/ukraine-ready-take-russian-election-hackers

The exercises held in Kiev last week involved around a hundred experts and were part of efforts to prevent arch-foe Russia from interfering in the crucial March 31 election.

Ukrainian security officials said they had registered a growing number of distributed denial-of-service attacks and phishing attempts to gain access to computers of the country's ministries and other state structures in recent months.
The SBU security agency has said that several Russian cyber attacks against the central election commission had recently taken place and more were expected.
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guest · Mar 21, 2019

Russian Hackers Target European Elections
March 21, 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2019/03/21/russian-hackers-target-european-elections/

Security firm FireEye says Russian hackers have been spearphishing European governments ahead of May's European Parliament elections.
The news, first reported by CNBC, confirms previous reports of malicious activity by Kremlin-backed groups.

According to FireEye, one group is APT28, also known as Fancy Bear and Strontium - widely believed to have been behind the phishing attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016.
FireEye suggests that the aim of these latest attacks could be simple cyberespionage - or an attempt to gather and leak information that could be damaging to certain parties or candidates.
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guest · Mar 22, 2019

NSW iVote registration goes down on election eve
Call volumes then overwhelm telephone service
March 22, 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-ivote-registration-goes-down-on-election-eve-522842

The NSW Electoral Commission is urging online voters to “try again later” after the iVote registration system went down on Friday afternoon.

Voters are able to cast votes for the NSW election using iVote, which is available online or by telephone.
However, both services struggled Friday afternoon and into the evening, with the iVote registration page returning a 502 bad gateway error or 503 service unavailable error.

The commission confirmed in a statement that the registration system was experiencing problems, though NSW Electoral Commissioner John Schmidt said actual votes cast using iVote were not impacted.
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guest · Mar 25, 2019

NSW Electoral Commission claims it is safe from second SwissVote flaw
March 25, 2019
https://www.zdnet.com/article/nsw-electoral-commission-claims-it-is-safe-from-second-swissvote-flaw/

The New South Wales Electoral Commission (NSWEC) has released a statement in response to a group of researchers detailing a second flaw in the electronic voting system it uses, saying it is confident it has not been affected.

The second flaw follows the first, which was essentially a trapdoor -- a flaw in the mixnet component that shuffles votes in an effort to remove the ability to link votes to individual electors.
"Based on its assessment of the information supplied by these academics, the NSW Electoral Commission is confident that the new issue they describe in the Swiss Post system is not relevant to the iVote system," the state government entity said.
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guest · Mar 26, 2019

After Mueller, questions loom about 2020 election security
March 26, 2019
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/after-mueller-questions-loom-about-2020-election-security/

The collusion question now answered, another one looms ahead of 2020: Will U.S. elections be secure from more Russian interference?
The 22-month-long special counsel investigation underscored how vulnerable the U.S. was to a foreign adversary seeking to sow discord on social media, spread misinformation and exploit security gaps in state election systems.

With the presidential primaries less than a year away, security experts and elected officials wonder whether the federal government and the states have done enough since 2016 to fend off another attack by Russia or other hostile foreign actors.

“Although we believe that Russia didn’t succeed in changing any vote totals, the Russian playbook is out there for other adversaries to use,” [...] “As we head towards the 2020 presidential elections, we’ve got to be more proactive in protecting our democratic process.”
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ronjor · Mar 27, 2019

Senators demand to know why election vendors still sell voting machines with ‘known’ vulnerabilities’

Zack Whittaker @zackwhittaker 27 Mar 2019
Four senior senators have called on the largest U.S. voting machine makers to explain why they continue to sell devices with “known vulnerabilities,” ahead of upcoming critical elections.
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guest · Mar 27, 2019

Cybersecurity researchers find security flaws in Likud, Labor party Android apps
March 27, 2019
https://www.timesofisrael.com/cyber...rity-flaws-in-likud-labor-party-android-apps/

Researchers at Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. said Wednesday that they had found “serious security breaches” granting access to “highly sensitive personal information” in the Android phone apps of the Likud and Labor parties.

“This is a very serious vulnerability,” he said. Even worse, he said, all of the data on the server that could be accessed via the app was not encrypted but in plain text.
Besides exposing the personal data of Likud members, he said, getting access to the Likud membership list could come in handy for hackers who want to specifically target these members “with cyber attacks or influence attacks,” he said.
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guest · Mar 29, 2019

Committee pushes 'cyber taskforce' for security of Australia's election system
March 29, 2019
https://www.zdnet.com/article/commi...e-for-security-of-australias-election-system/

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is tasked with overseeing the Australian electoral system, specifically the activities of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

Its Status Report [PDF], released on Friday, follows the November publication of the Report on the conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto [PDF], which made 31 recommendations to the AEC regarding cybersecurity, in particular where the manipulation of elections was concerned.
Specifically, the taskforce, the committee wrote, would focus on "systemic privacy breaches".
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guest · Apr 2, 2019

Taiwan to Block Chinese Streaming Sites Ahead of Election
April 2, 2019
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/taiwan-block-chinese-streaming-1/

The Taiwanese government is set to block Chinese streaming services in the country ahead of its 2020 presidential election amidst fears of a propaganda push from Beijing, according to reports.

The Taiwanese version of its iQiyi streaming site is said to be one of the most popular on the island, with millions of daily users.
However, Taipei is apparently looking to close this loophole for national security reasons, before the key January 2020 election date.

"We are concerned that streaming media services that have close ties with Beijing could have cultural and political influences in Taiwan ... and even affect Taiwan's elections," Chiu reportedly said.
Taiwanese officials accused the People’s Republic last year of peddling fake news via social media bots to influence voters ahead of mid-term elections.
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guest · Apr 5, 2019

State spending on election security expected to pick up in 2019
April 4, 2019
https://statescoop.com/state-spending-on-election-security-expected-to-pick-up-in-2019/

States and territories spent just 8 percent of the $380 million in federal election-security grants in the six months after they were distributed last year, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. But in a report Thursday, the commission said it expects the bulk of that funding to be spent before the 2020 presidential election.
“There hasn’t been a lot of money spent, but there is a lot of activity,” Mark Abbott, the commission’s grants director, told StateScoop.

Of the $31.4 million states spent through last September, more than half — $18.3 million — went toward cybersecurity, including hiring new personnel dedicated to network security, implementing risk assessments and vulnerability scans and putting up stronger firewalls around statewide voter registration systems, which were infamously targeted by Russian hackers during the 2016 presidential election.
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guest · Apr 5, 2019

EU States Test and Strengthen Readiness for Election Cyber Threats
April 5, 2019
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...engthen-readiness-for-election-cyber-threats/

EU member states tested their crisis plans and response to potential EU elections cybersecurity incidents during an exercise organized today in collaboration with the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the EU Agency for cybersecurity (ENISA).

As a result of this test, election and cybersecurity authorities from all EU member states will be strengthened in the face of security threats targeting the 2019 EU elections by improving their ability to maintain national and EU level awareness if a serious cybersecurity incident would happen.
Various scenarios part of today's tests
"To secure our democratic processes from manipulation or malicious cyber activities by private interests or third countries, the European Commission proposed in September 2018 a set of actions," said Andrus Ansip, Vice President of the European Commission for the Digital Single Market.
As detailed by European Commission's press release [...]
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guest · Apr 5, 2019

Swiss Post puts e-voting on hold after researchers uncover critical security errors
April 5, 2019
https://portswigger.net/daily-swig/...-researchers-uncover-critical-security-errors

Swiss Post has suspended its controversial online voting (e-voting) system after a team of researchers unearthed a series of critical errors in the system’s source code.

“Although the electronic ballot box could not be hacked, feedback on the published source code reveals critical errors,” Swiss Post said in a statement last week.
“Since the integrity of votes and elections is a top priority, Swiss Post is taking action. It will correct the source code and have it reviewed again by independent experts. It will therefore not provide its e-voting system to the cantons for the votes of May 19.”
Setting a precedent
Following the public intrusion test, Swiss Post and Scytl have hailed the program as something of a success.
“Any government that decides to entrust Scytl with their democracy after all of this should be regarded with intense suspicion [and] placed under harsh scrutiny,” she wrote over the weekend.
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guest · Apr 7, 2019

Paywall...
Hacker Claims They Breached Israel's Voter Registry Three Days Before Election
April 7, 2019
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...registry-three-days-before-election-1.7089973

Some believe the hacker simply recycled old information from an 11-year-old breach of Israel's population registry, which was leaked on the internet

A hacker claimed Saturday evening that they broke into Israel’s voter registry and stole information on six million Israelis, only three days before Tuesday’s Knesset election. The hacker, known as DarkCoder,...
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guest · Apr 7, 2019

mood said: ↑

Hacker Claims They Breached Israel's Voter Registry Three Days Before Election
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Israeli Authorities Challenge Claims of Voting System Breach
April 7, 2019
https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/04/07/israeli-authorities-challenge-claims-of-voting-system-breach/

Recent claims that Israel’s voting system for the upcoming election had been hacked and the personal details of six million Israelis compromised are bogus, according to Israeli government officials and cyber experts.
Government officials told Calcalist on condition of anonymity that currently there are no indications of election-related systems being compromised, and that Israel’s voter registry has many data points that do not appear to exist in the screenshot.

Israel’s Cyber Directorate is investigating the matter, a spokesperson for the Elections Committee stated, adding that as part of OpIsrael hackers always publish false information, or falsely post information from old, unrelated hacks as newly obtained information. At this point, no breaches of the voting system have been identified, the spokesperson said.
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guest · Apr 8, 2019

Senators’ Bill Aims Swift Sanctions at Election Meddlers
April 8, 2019
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/bill-aims-swift-sanctions-election-1/

US senators have introduced bipartisan legislation designed to punish with sanctions any nations found to be interfering in the country’s elections.
The Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Readiness Act (DETER) is the work of Mark Rubio and Chris Van Hollen.

It requires the director of national intelligence (DNI) to make an assessment within 60 days of an election day as to whether a foreign power interfered, including whether any senior politicians or oligarch from that country knew of the meddling.
The bill defines “interference” as everything from buying advertising to sway voters, to spreading fake news under false identities online, and hacking or denying service for election infrastructure, such as voter registration databases.
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guest · Apr 8, 2019

Facebook unveils plans to help protect Indian elections
April 8, 2019
https://www.neowin.net/news/facebook-unveils-plans-to-help-protect-indian-elections

Facebook has revealed a raft of measures it is taking in order to help protect the upcoming Indian General Election. While the social media giant is rolling out its political ad transparency tools such as its Ad Library which it has been deployed in other regions, it is also taking new steps.

In addition to the measures we’ve seen before, Facebook is launching new operation centers in Singapore and Dublin that will work with staff at Menlo Park (Facebook’s HQ) and experts in Delhi. This will strengthen the firm’s global coordination and speed up response times when it comes to combating fake news, misinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression.
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guest · Apr 10, 2019

Berkeley High student tried to rig his own election, exposing flaw in district’s cybersecurity
April 9, 2019
https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/0...tion-exposing-flaw-in-districts-cybersecurity

Large-scale voting fraud in a Berkeley High student government election has gotten two candidates disqualified and revealed a vulnerability in the district’s technology system.
No software hacking or Russian meddling was required.

The investigators were also able to determine that the false votes were cast from a computer, and looked into who had access to computers during the times the votes were cast. They interviewed potential perpetrators and narrowed it down to the presidential candidate himself, who eventually took responsibility for the fraud, said Principal Erin Schweng.
Hundreds of students kept formulaic email passwords
How was one student able to cast votes on behalf of hundreds of his classmates?
If a student does not change the default password, “anyone with access to your student ID number will be able to access and delete your emails, schoolwork, personal documents and anything stored on your Google Drive,” Stern wrote in his message to the student body.
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guest · Apr 12, 2019

Feds say Russian 2016 election meddling spanned all US states
April 12, 2019
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/20...2016-election-meddling-spanned-all-us-states/

A multi-agency report has strengthened claims that Russia meddled with election systems in all 50 US states during the last presidential race.

The report is called a joint intelligence bulletin (JIB), and it comes from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. It is an unclassified document intended for internal distribution to state and local authorities.
Intelligence newsletter OODA Loop reports that the JIB reveals stronger evidence of Russian interference. Agencies believe that Russian agents targeted more than the 21 states initially suspected.

Although there are some gaps in the data, the bulletin claims “moderate confidence” that Russia conducted “at least reconnaissance” against all US states because its research was so methodical, it added.
Russia’s cyberspace election meddling played out between June and October 2016, with most activity occurring in July, the JIB said.
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ronjor · Apr 25, 2019

Election tech vendors say they're securing their systems. Does anyone believe them?

Written by Greg Otto Apr 24, 2019
Security experts say the small number of companies that dominate the nation’s election technology market, including ES&S, have failed to acknowledge and remedy vulnerabilities that lie in systems used to hold elections across the country.
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Minimalist · Apr 26, 2019

FBI director: Protecting 2018 election was a 'dress rehearsal' for 2020

Protecting the 2018 U.S. midterm elections from foreign meddling was a “dress rehearsal for the big show” of the 2020 presidential elections, which adversaries are expected to target, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday.
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https://www.cyberscoop.com/fbi-christopher-wray-2020-election-dress-rehearsal/

hawki · Apr 27, 2019

"Russian Hackers Were In a Position’ to Alter Florida Voter Rolls, Rubio Confirms..."

A single line in the long-anticipated Mueller report about a breach in a Florida county’s elections system has state officials scrambling...

Lisa Lewis, the supervisor of elections, stumbled on an important email sent to her and three others in the office, by then a week old, that appeared to be from VR Systems, the vendor that sells electronic voter list equipment to nearly every county in the state....

Though it had VR Systems’ distinctive logo, with a red V and a blue R, the email contained a malicious Trojan virus, and it originated not from the elections vendor but from the Russian military intelligence unit known as the G.R.U. The email had been sent to 120 elections email accounts across Florida...

Also buried in Ms. Lewis’s inbox was a warning from VR’s chief operating officer, flagging the dangerous spearphishing attempt and warning all his customers not to click on it. But, it now appears, someone did...

'The F.B.I.,' ..., 'believes that this operation enabled the G.R.U. to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government.'...

In an interview on Friday, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida took it one step further, saying that Russian hackers not only accessed a Florida voting system, but were 'in a position' to change voter roll data...

Mr. Rubio said he was constrained as a member of the intelligence committee as to how much he could tell his constituents...."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/florida-russia-hacking-election.html

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