Securing Elections

Minimalist · Aug 10, 2019

Expert: Many Wisconsin elections clerks use outdated systems

Hundreds of local clerks are using outdated computer systems and aren't installing security patches on their current systems, leaving Wisconsin's election system vulnerable to potentially devastating cyberattacks, state elections officials fear.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2019-08-expert-wisconsin-elections-clerks-outdated.html

Minimalist · Aug 10, 2019

You can easily secure America's e-voting systems tomorrow. Use paper – Bruce Schneier

While various high-tech solutions to secure electronic voting systems are being touted this week to election officials across the United States, according to infosec guru Bruce Schneier there is only one tried-and-tested approach that should be considered: pen and paper.
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https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/09/schneier_voting_security/

guest · Aug 10, 2019

Lawmakers embrace hackers in Vegas as 2020 election looms
August 10, 2019
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/08/tech/def-con-vegas-lawmakers/index.html

Multiple members of congress, dozens of congressional staffers and members of the intelligence community are gathering in Las Vegas this weekend to rub shoulders with hackers at Def Con, one of the world's largest hacking conferences.

Washington's embrace of the hacking community comes amid heightened awareness of the threat of cyber attacks in the wake of the 2016 US presidential election and lawmakers realizing they need to get to grips with technology, Phil Stupak, one of the organizers of Def Con's A.I. Village told CNN Business before the conference began.
Speaking to CNN Business after visiting the village on Friday, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said no voting equipment should be connected to the internet. "This is basically like putting American ballot boxes on the streets of Moscow," Wyden said.

Chris Krebs, the top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security said Friday that backup paper ballots would be a necessary part of 2020 election security.
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guest · Aug 11, 2019

Hackers got info for 76,000 Illinois voters in '16. Here's what's being done in Macon County
August 10, 2019
https://herald-review.com/news/loca...cle_dbce736f-3160-5f07-acbd-5ca738d4d917.html

The person in charge of safeguarding Macon County’s electoral system from Russian hacker attacks or other nefarious onslaughts said he’s confident local ballots are secure.

Tanner said state grant money — he’s not allowed to reveal how much, but it's into the thousands — paid for consultants who tested the county’s voting system earlier this year by trying to hack into it. They weren’t successful, but Tanner said the exercise produced a detailed report highlighting areas that needed beefing up.
Tanner said the first really big test of the strengthened voting system will come in the March primary elections.

"We're going to make every effort working with all of our partners to have a safe election in 2020," Scholz said.
“But I think we are doing everything we can at this point; it’s a cat-and-mouse game as you are constantly making adjustments to keep up with new threats.”
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guest · Aug 11, 2019

2020 and the black-box ballot box
August 11, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/11/2020-and-the-black-ballot-box/

One of the scarier notions in the world today is the prospect of American voting machines being compromised at scale: voters thrown off rolls, votes disregarded, vote tallies edited, entire elections hacked.
There are several ways to help secure voting. One, thankfully, is already in place; the decentralization of systems such that every state and county maintains its own, providing a bewildering panoply of varying targets, rather than a single tantalizing point of failure. A second, as security guru Bruce Schneier points out, is to eschew electronic voting machines altogether and stick with good old-fashioned paper ballots.

The election threat model is broader than you might think. Researchers can, for instance, transform ballot images so that votes move imperceptibly. Which is one of many reasons why paper ballots are so critical.
The audit situation, though, is … more complicated. Only 25 states require any audits of federal elections, for instance, and only some of those audits have teeth. Witness Verified Voting’s superb interactive explainers of post election audits and state audit laws.
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Secure machines, which generate individual paper ballots, to be hand-tabulated and/or audited — that’s the kind of defense in depth we want, and personally I’m a little concerned that the final moat, the audit, doesn’t get the attention it deserves. To quote, of all people, a Republican president: “Trust, but verify.”
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Minimalist · Aug 12, 2019

Why blockchain-based voting could threaten democracy

As the desire to increase voter turnout remains strong and the number of online voting pilot projects rises in the U.S. and abroad, some security experts warn any internet-based election system is wide open to attack, regardless of the underlying infrastructure.
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https://www.computerworld.com/article/3430697/why-blockchain-could-be-a-threat-to-democracy.html

Minimalist · Aug 13, 2019

Russia Issues Election Protest Warning To Google

Russia’s communication watchdog Roskomnadzor at the weekend issued a blunt warning to Google about interference in its internal politics.

The warning from Roskomnadzor comes as Moscow continues to experience weeks of protest, ahead of local elections in in the Russian capital.
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https://www.silicon.co.uk/e-regulation/legal/russia-protest-warning-google-278679

Minimalist · Aug 13, 2019

About 12% of U.S. voters will cast ballots without a paper backup, despite security concerns: Report

As many as 16 million Americans, or roughly 12 percent of voters, are expected to cast ballots in 2020 using potentially vulnerable paperless equipment, a report said Tuesday.

Released by The Brennan Center with less than 15 months left in the 2020 presidential campaign, the report recommended that Congress allocate additional funding for state and local election officials to replace aging machines at risk of exploitation.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/13/one-in-ten-voters-to-cast-ballots-on-paperless-mac/

guest · Aug 14, 2019

Elections Commission to consider security upgrades, outreach
August 13, 2019
https://www.wsaw.com/fox/content/ne...der-security-upgrades-outreach-539656291.html

The Wisconsin Elections Commission will consider spending up to $810,000 to upgrade local clerks' computer security and launch an outreach program to dispel myths about election security.

The commission's staff has warned the panel that scores of clerks use outdated computer systems or aren't installing security patches, leaving Wisconsin's election system vulnerable to potentially devastating cyberattacks.
The staff has recommended buying software that can test clerks' vulnerabilities remotely, loaning clerks up-to-date computers and creating a new position to provide technical support for clerks. The staff also has proposed hiring Madison-based advertising firm KW2 to inform people about election security upgrades and dispel common misconceptions about ballot security and tallying.

The commission is set to consider the proposals Tuesday.
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Minimalist · Aug 14, 2019

Fewer Than Half of States Take These Two Election Security Precautions

Heading into the 2020 elections, fewer than half of states will require two key steps that cybersecurity experts have endorsed as a means to secure elections, according to a new report.

All but eight states will utilize voting systems that create a paper trail of results from the upcoming presidential election, but only 24 states also require post-election audits of those paper records in order to certify results, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brennan Center for Justice.
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https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecuri...ese-two-election-security-precautions/159165/

guest · Aug 15, 2019

ZeroFOX Seeks to Protect Election Campaigns
August 15, 2019
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/zerofox-seeks-to-protect-election/

Online election interference has become such a concern that one company has now launched a product to help protect against it. ZeroFOX has announced a security suite to safeguard political candidates and campaigns from online threats.

The ZeroFOX Election Protection Solution analyzes data across social media and other online sources, including the deep web (the closed surface websites that aren't publicly searchable) and the dark web (usually .onion sites accessed via Tor).
It searches for fake accounts, phishing attacks and threats of physical harm, along with malware links and malicious domains and websites.

Users of the product first determine which candidates and website to protect, and then configure rules from a library of pre-built policies to watch for spoof accounts, takeovers and inappropriate content, including online threats.
ZeroFOX also claims to be the first offering a deepfake detection solution as part of the product.
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ronjor · Aug 15, 2019

Judge bars Georgia from using current voting technology in 2020

By Laura Hautala August 15, 2019
The state is in the midst of getting new voting machines and other tech.
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guest · Aug 15, 2019

Ex-CIA chief worries campaigns falling short on cybersecurity
August 15, 2019
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersec...ries-campaigns-falling-short-on-cybersecurity

Democratic 2020 presidential campaigns say they are working to boost their cybersecurity, but experts worry those efforts may not be enough.
Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell told The Hill he worries there is a “void” and that campaigns need outside help to fully address the issue.

“There is not a lot of initial thought given to cybersecurity,” Morell said about the campaigns.
Repeated cyber incidents in both 2016 and 2018 have put a spotlight on the issue and raised worries about a repeat in the upcoming presidential election.

Morell is on the board of the newly launched U.S. CyberDome group, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide free cybersecurity protections to 2020 presidential campaigns, and potentially in future elections.
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Minimalist · Aug 16, 2019

Voting-machine companies are thinking about vulnerability disclosure, bug bounty programs

Voting-equipment vendors expressed interest Thursday in establishing a program for the coordinated disclosure of hardware and software vulnerabilities in their equipment — a practice common in other industries and long championed by security experts.
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https://www.cyberscoop.com/voting-machine-eac-vulnerabilitiy-bug-bounty/

guest · Aug 16, 2019

Kentucky official says counties can't upgrade cybersecurity because they're 'severely under resourced'
August 16, 2019
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/15/politics/kentucky-elections-security-counties/index.html

A top Kentucky election official said Thursday that counties there are "severely under resourced," affecting their abilities to provide adequate cybersecurity.

"Most of us cannot compel our local election jurisdictions to update their equipment," said Jared Dearing, executive director of the Kentucky State Board of Elections, before an Elections Assistance Commission panel in Silver Spring.
The comments came a week after the annual Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, where the three lawmakers who attended -- all Democrats -- blamed Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, for the Congress' stagnation on any election security bill.
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Rainwalker · Aug 16, 2019

mood said: ↑

Kentucky official says counties can't upgrade cybersecurity because they're 'severely under resourced'
August 16, 2019
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/15/politics/kentucky-elections-security-counties/index.html
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Surprise Surprise

guest · Aug 18, 2019

Warren County to buy electronic voting equipment despite 'hacking' concerns
August 18, 2019
https://poststar.com/news/local/war...cle_e64b59df-f5b9-5921-bf94-101d1fc311a0.html

Warren County's Board of Elections will get electronic voting "pollbooks" in the coming months despite concerns by the county's budget officer about security of the devices.

The county Board of Supervisors approved spending $86,887 for 90 tablet computers and entering into a software licensing contract for $11,250 annually for computers and software from Tenex Software Solutions of Florida.
The equipment will be used by election inspectors to check voters in during elections, and won't be used by voters.

Most counties across the state are moving to the equipment, including Washington County, and state grant funding will pay the tab for the equipment and for training. But the counties will make the purchases themselves, with state reimbursement coming down the road.

"I feel pretty secure we can move forward on this," Queensbury at-Large Supervisor Brad Magowan said.
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guest · Aug 19, 2019

Most states still aren’t set to audit paper ballots in 2020
Despite expert recommendations
August 18, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/18/...-security-audits-november-2020-election-votes

Despite some progress on voting security since 2016, most states in the US aren’t set to require an audit of paper ballots in the November 2020 election, according to a new report out this week from the Brennan Center for Justice.
The number will increase to at least 24 states by the 2020 elections, according to the report. “However,” the report notes, “there is nothing stopping most of these remaining states from conducting such audits if they have the resources and will to do so.”

Election security became a new focus of debate recently, as Democrats slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to bring election security bills up for a vote. The bills proposed by Democrats would require states to use paper ballots and audit the results.
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Minimalist · Aug 19, 2019

2020 election security to face same vulnerabilities as in 2016

Confidence in the security of the 2020 election spanned the gamut, depending on who you asked at DEF CON's Voting Village, with local officials more optimistic than technologists.
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https://searchsecurity.techtarget.c...urity-to-face-same-vulnerabilities-as-in-2016

ronjor · Aug 20, 2019

Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election

By Catalin Cimpanu for Zero Day | August 20, 2019
French researcher nets $15,000 prize for finding bugs in Moscow's Ethereum-based voting system.
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guest · Aug 22, 2019

IT Security Pros: Encryption Backdoors Are Election Hacking Risk
August 22, 2019
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/security-encryption-backdoors/

The IT security community overwhelmingly believes that government-mandated encryption backdoors will put countries at a greater risk of election hacking, according to new Venafi research.
The security vendor polled over 380 security professionals at Black Hat USA 2019 in Las Vegas earlier this month, following recent comments by attorney general, William Barr.

Now the IT security community is arguing that backdoors would also expose countries to the threat of cyber-attacks on election infrastructure — an increasingly important issue as the 2020 Presidential election comes into view.
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Venafi: Will Encryption Backdoors Hurt Election Infrastructure? Security Professionals Say Yes.

ronjor · Aug 22, 2019

Inside Microsoft’s plan to fix America’s broken voting system

By Mark Wilson 6 minute Read 08.22.19
Microsoft ElectionGuard is an attempt to make voting in the United States more modern and equitable. And pilot trials will begin next year.
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Minimalist · Aug 25, 2019

Virtual Caucus at Risk After DNC Experts Hacked Conference Call

The Democratic National Committee has raised substantial cybersecurity concerns over virtual caucusing, potentially dooming the effort just five months before Iowa begins its process of choosing a presidential nominee.
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https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/virtual...-dnc-experts-hacked-conference-call-1.1306289

guest · Aug 26, 2019

Exclusive: U.S. officials fear ransomware attack against 2020 election
August 26, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-election-exclusive-idUSKCN1VG222

The U.S. government plans to launch a program in roughly one month that narrowly focuses on protecting voter registration databases and systems ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

These systems, which are widely used to validate the eligibility of voters before they cast ballots, were compromised in 2016 by Russian hackers seeking to collect information. Intelligence officials are concerned that foreign hackers in 2020 not only will target the databases but attempt to manipulate, disrupt or destroy the data, according to current and former U.S. officials.

“We assess these systems as high risk,” said a senior U.S. official, because they are one of the few pieces of election technology regularly connected to the Internet.
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guest · Aug 27, 2019

Where’s the proof internet voting is secure?
August 27, 2019
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/where-s-the-proof-internet-voting-is-secure

According to Mr Gately, the NSW iVote system has, “proven the feasibility of casting a secret vote safely and securely over the internet”.
The key word here is “proven”. Anyone can claim that their system is secure and protects people’s privacy, but how would we know?

When the NSWEC claimed that “some 1.7 per cent of electors who voted using iVote® also used the verification service and none of them identified any anomalies with their vote,” we took that as reasonable evidence that the security problem hadn’t been exploited.
But it wasn’t true.

There are numerous alternatives to paperless Internet voting. We could extend the early voting period to give people more time to get to the polls. We could run computers in a polling place with a voter-verifiable paper record and a risk-limiting audit.
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