Hackers from the annual DEF Con conference found glaring security issues with voting machines used in U.S. elections
Hackers from the annual DEF Con conference, “Voting Village,” found glaring securities issues with voting machines used in U.S. elections. Still, despite the findings, nothing will be fixed for the Nov. 5 election.
Scott Algeier, executive director of the Information Technology-Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and others spoke to Politico after the event about the “multiple pages” of vulnerabilities the hackers found when they attempted to break into and why these issues won’t be fixed before the next election.
That process involves getting the voting machine manufacturers to agree to make the changes, which is an uphill battle. Then, if the companies agree with the updates, each state’s election agency has to agree with the new system, which means fighting the bureaucratic system designed to make this challenging to do quickly. But even if both hurdles are accomplished in record time, every machine needs to be manually updated. (ROOKE: Kamala’s Record Rears Its Ugly Head After She’s Caught Stealing From Trump)
“Even if you find a vulnerability next week in a piece of modern equipment that’s deployed in the field, there’s a challenge in getting the patch and getting the fix out to the state and local elections officials and onto the equipment before the November election,” Algeier said. “It’s not a 90-day fix. It’s not a Microsoft every Tuesday; issue your patch, and everything works fine. It’s a pretty complicated process.”
The system is flawed, and the event organizers have been “frustrated” about the lack of changes. Voting Village co-founder Harri Hursti told the outlet despite hackers finding “multiple pages” of integrity issues this year and in years past with the voting machines, he’s “angry” that nothing has been done about them.
“There’s so much basic stuff that should be happening and is not happening, so yes, I’m worried about things not being fixed, but they haven’t been fixed for a long time, and I’m also angry about it,” Hursti said.
Americans have been worried about election integrity leading up to the 2024 presidential race, so much so that the Republican National Committee has created a unit devoted to combating any shenanigans that could arise. However, it’s hard to take elections seriously in a country that relies on easily hacked machines. The organizers will not specify what issues they found until the report comes out next month. With this in mind, how should Americans feel secure in their voting system?
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JUST IN: America’s Top Hackers Identify MAJOR Problems With Voting Machines
In a race against time before the election, a crew of the world’s elite hackers took over a Las Vegas conference room last weekend, turning it into a high-tech battleground. Their mission was to infiltrate and expose the vulnerabilities of the very voting machines set to be used in the upcoming election.
Called the Voting Village at the DEF CON hacker conference, the setup resembled more of a high-security tech lab than anything else, where these cybersecurity experts dissected and tested the machines to help election officials patch potential security flaws. Unfortunately, their critical findings might just miss the deadline to implement any changes, adding an element of suspense to the electoral process.
Politico reported:
In one sense, it’s the normal course of events: Every August, hackers at the DEF CON conference find security gaps in voting equipment, and every year the long and complex process of fixing them means nothing is implemented until the next electoral cycle.
But Election Day security is under particular scrutiny in 2024. That’s both because of increasing worries that foreign adversaries will figure out how to breach machines, and because President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of widespread fraud in 2020 undermined confidence in the vote among his supporters.
As a result, many in the election security community are bemoaning the fact that no system has been developed to roll out fixes faster and worrying that the security gaps that get identified this year will provide fodder for those who may want to question the results.
“As far as time goes, it is hard to make any real, major, systemic changes, but especially 90 days out from the election,” Catherine Terranova, an organizer at the DEF CON “Voting Village” event, pointed out to the Politico. This, she noted, is particularly troubling during “an election year like this.”
DEF CON, one of the largest and most notable hacker conventions in the world, annually held in Las Vegas, has developed a unique niche in examining and improving election security. Their “Voting Village” is a dedicated space where cybersecurity experts converge to test the vulnerabilities of various pieces of election equipment. This initiative started in response to growing concerns about election security and has gained significant attention from both the public and officials.
At DEF CON, participants are encouraged to probe voting machines, identify potential security flaws, and develop strategies to mitigate these risks. This hands-on approach not only highlights existing vulnerabilities but also fosters a proactive dialogue among stakeholders about enhancing the integrity of elections. The findings from these sessions have sometimes been eye-opening, revealing weaknesses that could potentially be exploited to manipulate election outcomes.
The efforts at DEF CON have not gone unnoticed. Election officials, policymakers, and manufacturers have started to engage more with the cybersecurity community, taking the insights from these annual events into serious consideration. This collaboration has led to improvements in voting technology and protocols to ensure more secure elections. For instance, after vulnerabilities were demonstrated at DEF CON, several states revisited their election security strategies and initiated upgrades to their systems, emphasizing the importance of patching identified weaknesses.
This election cycle has already felt the impact. On Saturday that the presidential campaign of former President Trump was compromised in a hack, which the campaign claims was orchestrated by Iran.
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