USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[grarpamp]

Machines used in 2020, still in use, get hacked...


Dominion Voting Machines In 16 States Vulnerable To Hacks: Cyber Agency

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-georgia-election-2020-a746b253f3404dbf794349df498c9542
https://apnews.com/article/business-health-voting-georgia-coronavirus-pandemic-67df846bacacefe8e33b31cd14258190
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-science-voting-election-2020-6755cf1c409f4aab613df8891b84272d
https://alumni.umich.edu/michigan-alum/hacking-the-vote/
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-ahalderman-062117.pdf

Dominion Voting Systems machines used in at least 16 states have
software weaknesses that make them vulnerable to hacking, the U.S.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) has warned election
officials.

According to AP, which obtained the CISA advisory ahead of an
anticipated Friday release, the agency said it has no evidence these
vulnerabilities have actually been exploited, but is urging states to
implement measures to prevent and detect hacking.

    "One of the most serious vulnerabilities could allow malicious
code to be spread from the election management system to machines
throughout a jurisdiction...The vulnerability could be exploited by
someone with physical access or by someone who is able to remotely
infect other systems that are connected to the internet if election
workers then use USB sticks to bring data from an infected system into
the election management system," AP reports.

The 16 states weren't identified. According to the company's website,
Dominion products are used in 28 states and nine of the 20 largest
counties in the country.

The CISA advisory was prompted by a 25,000-word report by J. Alex
Halderman, a University of Michigan computer scientist. He prepared
the report as an expert witness in a federal lawsuit filed by voting
integrity activists who want Georgia's machines replaced with paper
ballots. The suit was filed in 2017 and is unrelated to any allegation
of a specific hack.

Election-hackers could exploit other weaknesses to forge cards
technicians use to access—and change—the machines' software.
“Attackers could then mark ballots inconsistently with voters’ intent,
alter recorded votes or even identify voters’ secret ballots,”
Halderman told AP.

State and federal election officials maintain they have no evidence
that Dominion equipment was tampered with to change 2020 election
tallies. Dominion is suing Fox News, Rudy Giuliani and others for
defamation, over their suggestions the company's voting machines
enabled fraud in that election.

CISA is recommending that, in jurisdictions where the Dominion voting
machines are used, officials should implement safeguards such as
testing of machines before and after elections, post-election audits,
and asking voters to confirm the readable portion of machine-generated
paper ballots.

However, even according to the CISA advisory, voter confirmation of
the human-readable, computer-generated paper ballot can be skirted by
hackers. Automated counting of ballots is done by reading a QR code
printed on them, and CISA warned that some of the software
vulnerabilities could allow hackers to generate a code that's
"inconsistent with the human-readable portion of the paper ballot.”

Halderman's report is being kept under seal; U.S. District Judge Amy
Totenberg says she's wary the report, if made public, would serve as a
user's manual for bad actors. Halderman's report has been designated
"attorneys' eyes only," which means even the parties to the suit
aren't allowed to read it.

Dominion is at the center of the CISA advisory because the Georgia
lawsuit that prompted Halderman's report centers on Dominion machines,
which are used for nearly all in-person voting in the state.

    "I think it’s more likely than not that serious problems would be
found in equipment from other vendors if they were subjected to the
same kind of testing,” said Halderman.

Halderman and his students have successfully hacked voting machines in
their own tests. In 2017 testimony for the Senate intelligence
committee, Halderman, speaking about voting machines in general, said:

    “We’ve created attacks that can spread from machine to machine
like a computer virus and silently change election outcomes. We
studied touch screens and optical scan systems. And in every single
case, we found ways for attackers to sabotage machines and to steal
votes.”

Halderman recommended universal adoption of optical scan ballots,
where voters manually fill in paper ballots that are scanned and
counted by a computer—along with the inspection of a sufficient
quantity of paper ballots to verify that optical scanners are
compiling an accurate tally.

"Paper provides a resilient physical record of the vote that simply
can’t be compromised by a cyberattack," he said.