A group of ethical hackers tested voting machines and election systems mostly bought from eBay to check for potential vulnerabilities of these devices that will be used in the upcoming 2020 election.
All Voting Machines Found Vulnerable To Attack
Voting Machine Hacking Village (Voting Village) participants who conducted the tests at a Def Con cybersecurity conference this summer were able to crack each of the machines.
Voting Village was launched in 2017 and has since served as a forum for identifying vulnerabilities within the election infrastructure in the United States. The test conducted this year showed that machines, which are crucial to the success of the next election, are vulnerable to hacks.
Among the flaws that allowed hackers to access the machines include weak default passwords and inferior encryption.
The group warned that anyone with access to the machines may hack them, and poll workers who make mistakes or take shortcuts may even allow remote hackers to infiltrate the machines.
Minimizing Risks Amid Hacking Threats
Elections that rely on modern technological system face unique threats. Hacking incidents can jeopardize the practice of democracy. Georgetown professor Matt Blaze, one of the organizers of the Def Con Voting Village, said that elections systems should minimize risks and verify election results with paper ballots.
"We know these machines are vulnerable, and what's important is we use machines like those that produce paper ballots that can tolerate the vulnerabilities rather than fail completely because of them. And that means paper ballots and risk-limiting audits," he said.
The U.S. government is already marking preparations in the event an election-related ransomware attack happens. Senior officials themselves that voter registration databases and system are high risks because these are regularly connected to the internet.
The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency of the Homeland Security Department is now working with election officials and private sectors partners ahead of the elections to protect databases and provide a response to potential cyberattacks.
