Author Topic: More evidence about a cyberattack on US election system  (Read 773 times)

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Offline SCarpelan

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More evidence about a cyberattack on US election system
« on: June 06, 2017, 08:29:40 am »
The Intercept has received leaked NSA documents providing evidence about (probably) a Russian attempt at hacking the voting system. It involved spear phishing attacks on the company that provides software for checking voter registration and then using the acquired data to launch phishing attacks at US officials using the company's system. According to the leaked report the attack was likely executed by GRU itself, not freelance hackers.

Note that there is no evidence of this having any influence on the actual election since it doesn't appear the attackers successfully intruded into the actual voter registration system and the software itself didn't cause significant problems anywhere - the one incident where the system failed was the result of an user error. This is why I am not posting this in the Trump thread; I think this is a separate issue from the Orange Clown's fuck ups.

While this election was not compromised this does pose a problem for the future: if a voter registration system was to be successfully compromised and the attackers were able to hit key districts this could turn an election. This sounds like begging for trouble when it comes to these systems:

Quote
Some of the company’s devices are advertised as having wireless internet and Bluetooth connectivity, which could have provided an ideal staging point for further malicious actions.

You know, printing out voter rolls and checking registrations manually might cause more work but it is in the end much more reliable. Whenever I go vote I'm instinctively amused at how primitive it seems to have people check your ID against printouts but this reminds that easier is not necessarily more secure.

Granted, locating these key districts beforehand in presidential elections is not easy. On the other hand, this is problematic for the reliability of any election using these systems, not only presidential elections. A big problem the piece points out is that an election winner who benefits from activity like this even if they didn't participate in it themselves doesn't really have the incentive to push forward with any investigation on the issue.

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Offline ironbite

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Re: More evidence about a cyberattack on US election system
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2017, 04:55:22 pm »
Yeah and then the DoJ arrested the leaker, Reality Winner, for leaking the documents and providing validity to them.

Ironbite-cause shutting the barn door after the horse has run off is so productive.