Category Archives: election security

HackerOne cuts ties with mobile voting firm Voatz after it clashed with researchers

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HackerOne, a company that pairs ethical hackers with organizations to fix software flaws, has kicked mobile voting vendor Voatz off its platform, citing the vendor’s hostile interactions with security researchers. It is the first time in its eight-year existence that HackerOne, which works with companies from AT&T to Uber, has expelled an organization from its security program. The decision comes after Voatz assailed the motives of MIT researchers who found flaws in the company’s voting app. “After evaluating Voatz’s pattern of interactions with the research community, we decided to terminate the program on the HackerOne platform,” a HackerOne spokesperson told CyberScoop. “We partner with organizations that prioritize acting in good faith towards the security researcher community and providing adequate access to researchers for testing.” It is the latest security-related setback for Voatz, which is trying to make inroads in a market dominated by traditional voting machine manufacturers. In the last […]

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Researchers use AI and create early warning system to identify disinformation online

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Researchers at the University of Notre Dame are using artificial intelligence to develop an early warning system that will identify manipulated images, deepfake videos and disinformation online. The project is an effort to combat the rise of coordinate… Continue reading Researchers use AI and create early warning system to identify disinformation online→

Election commission hires cyber-savvy adviser to support 2020 efforts

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The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is hiring a senior policy adviser to bolster its cybersecurity work with election officials and voting equipment vendors ahead of the 2020 presidential vote. Maurice Turner is set to join the federal commission at the end of the month as a senior adviser to the executive director, supporting the EAC’s internal operations and programing. Externally, he says he can help the commission with an update to important guidelines for voting systems security, and in supporting states as they set up programs to find and fix software vulnerabilities. “I want election officials to expect that EAC is a place that they can go for this type of information,” Turner told CyberScoop. “Whether it’s about security standards or new methods for election administration.” Turner has spent the last two years working on election security at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology. He was previously a fellow […]

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Election commission hires cybersecurity expert to help states with 2020 infrastructure

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The federal agency that oversees funding for states to secure their election equipment is hiring a cybersecurity expert versed in voting technology as it prepares for the 2020 election. Joshua Franklin will start in the coming weeks in a top cybersecurity position at the Election Assistance Commission, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. It is an effort by the EAC, a tiny agency with a big responsibility, to bolster the cybersecurity expertise it has on staff. Franklin, who spent six years as an engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is expected to protect EAC networks from hacking threats and support the commission’s cybersecurity work with state and local election officials. Franklin has been working as an election security advocate for years, drawing attention to the issue at hacking conferences. In 2018, Franklin presented research at DEF CON comparing the vulnerabilities in the websites of House and Senate candidates for the […]

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Former Buttigieg CISO urges DNC to coordinate information sharing between campaigns

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Over the last year, Democratic presidential campaigns have had difficulty sharing threat data between one another, according to the former security boss for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, raising concerns about the party’s ability to fend off possible interference ahead of the November elections. Mick Baccio, who spent roughly five months working for the now-defunct Buttigieg campaign, told CyberScoop that his team tried sharing information with other campaigns that could have helped officials protect themselves from hackers. The effort was hampered, he said, by a shortage of qualified security staffers on other campaigns, and the lack of a formal information sharing process. Baccio resigned from the campaign in January over philosophical differences. “It’s not that there’s not a want to share. It’s ‘I don’t know who to talk to,’” he said during an interview Wednesday at the Splunk Government Summit in Washington, D.C.. “I don’t know of a formal mechanism; whether it’s through the DNC, DCCC, […]

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Super Tuesday gives feds and states a test run for securing November vote

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Federal and state officials were up late Tuesday monitoring for threats from hackers and trolls to the biggest primary day of the 2020 election season. A watch floor at the Department of Homeland Security kept election administrators across the country plugged into threat data coming in from the intelligence community. While there were some notable technical glitches in the voting process, nothing malicious came to pass. Bleary-eyed officials can go back to work Wednesday with a sigh of relief but also some lessons learned on how to protect the November presidential vote, which U.S. officials have repeatedly warned will draw foreign interference attempts. “We had well over 100 state and local officials in the room with us exchanging information with us throughout the day,” a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division said on a 9 p.m. Eastern call with reporters. “[There are] ways that we can improve […]

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Only 38% of US govt workers received ransomware prevention training

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73% of government employees are concerned about impending ransomware threats to cities across the country, and more employees fear of cyberattacks to their community than natural disasters and terrorist attacks, an IBM survey has revealed. More than 10… Continue reading Only 38% of US govt workers received ransomware prevention training→

DNC tells campaigns to be wary of contact from fake Sanders team account

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The Democratic National Committee is warning presidential campaigns that someone has been impersonating a Bernie Sanders staffer through a domain registered in a foreign country, with the intention of contacting at least two other campaigns. The chief security officer for the DNC, Bob Lord, said in an email obtained by CyberScoop that adversaries could use the fake personas to set up phone calls or meetings with presidential campaign staffers. “They may impersonate people in the hopes that you will download suspicious files, or click on a link to a phishing site. Sometimes they seek to set up a call or an in-person meeting with the intent to record and publish the interaction,” Lord wrote Wednesday. It wasn’t clear if the actor or actors behind the impersonation successfully interacted with staffers at the campaigns they contacted. “If you receive any emails from a domain that you do not recognize or think is suspicious, please […]

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Election Security a 2020 Myth?

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As the 2020 election season shifts into high gear, the importance of election security becomes one of the most important issues facing the U.S. Thousands of hours have been spent within government investigating and discussing the role played by Russia… Continue reading Election Security a 2020 Myth?→