tomorrow, 8 November, presidential elections in the United States. To a great extent they are based on outdated solutions such as physical voting cards. However, this does not mean that cybercriminals can’t seriously broken.
In the beginning is to think about how in one night was able to collect and analyze vast amounts of information and then transfer them to the public in a friendly form. It is a service offered by news Agency Associated Press. It provides its partners and clients (mostly media), informing about the election results at the state level and at the national level.
the Agency can be divided into several stages. In the beginning, the journalists working with the Associated Press assemble voices from officials in individual counties. Then on the phone transmit the results of 800 officials on issues of entering of the ballots in Spokane, Washington or in the center of the Input Votes. Officials injected into the voice system, which is then verified and validated. The results of the vote are published in the media, and then updated during the evening of the election and for several days after the vote.
Unfortunately, it seems that the system that is used to input votes is not too safe.
System is probably connected to the Internet. Maybe we could find it in a hidden network, says Sean Sullivan, security Advisor of F-Secure. – this is probably system of the old type, which leave connected to the network is certainly a bad idea. Also a bad idea, usually displayed in plain text, without encryption, the login page and the lack of HTTPS. It also appears that the side of the AP Vote Count located in new York city without the use of processing services from DDoS attacks. (…) This can be problematic. sums up Sean Sullivan.
admittedly, hacking systems that support elections the United States is unlikely, because he is very absent-minded. Each state has its own system of counting, which just needs to be in accordance with the guidelines with the feds. In addition, almost every state has no means a full upgrade of their systems, hence some of the new voting machines to communicate there with the superior older solutions.
this Means that, although most of the voting machines really are vulnerable to tampering, hacking of appropriate equipment is very difficult and requires a lot of happiness. Holding niewykrywalnego attacks, in which during the vote favored would be one of the candidates in the voting of the electoral College, it will take an unimaginable amount of time, money, rare abilities and a very high degree of happiness.
an Attacker could, however, focus on attacks on more centralized reporting process results.
during the evening of the electoral system Associated Press, can be very vulnerable to attack. On the one hand, the attacker can modify the results passed through the system. In addition, the DDoS attack may lead to delay in counting. This could cause suspicion in falsification of the election results and, in addition, to preheat a tense situation.
interestingly, it is not necessary thus to falsify the election. Just to manage my system in the same County. Should make it as visible and obvious. Then these apparent violations to identify and propose to the public that the attempts of election fraud has occurred across the country. The current political situation is very hot and a lot of people believe in the manipulation of votes. Lack of faith in the veracity of the election results indicates a lack of confidence in their winners. This situation, when the difference between the candidates is minimal, can lead to civil unrest.
Any information on violations during the voting at the present time fall on fertile ground, especially that Donald trump admitted that may not recognize the election results. As if that wasn’t enough, some time heard about many cyberatakach by the Russian special services. In October, U.S. officials said that Russian was behind the break-in for the company that is working on the election system in Florida. In similar thefts have occurred in Arizona and Illinois. Came also to the intrusion of the National Committee of the Democratic Party (DNC) and computer John Courts, head of the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Data of them were on WikiLeaks.
Experts believe that these events can have a huge impact on the outcome of the election.
Much more than hacking the voting process or the vote. Spice case adds the fact that Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, told CNN that the allegations cyberatakach in the United States flatter him. When the journalist pressed for a definite confirmation or zdementowanie information about Russia’s participation in the burglary, said: “we deny Nothing and nothing has been proved”.
the World is moving forward, and modern decisions, I’m going to play a big role during the campaign and voting. Because of this, all democratic countries should think about the technologies that will help in ensuring the fairness of elections. There needs to be recognition of the electoral system for the critical infrastructure and the creation of the means intended for its protection.
– In several European countries, available smart card technology to identify online, says Sullivan. – they are Not widely used. If a country such as the United States began to think seriously about introducing this kind of technology, it would be a real breakthrough.
well, it’s hard to disagree with him.
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