US Voting Machines Hacked in Minutes at DEF CON

The spectre of voter fraud – perceived or otherwise – in the US is becoming an increasingly prevalent conspiracy theory. Indeed, even the current US President himself parrots such accusations. While most accusations of voter fraud are demonstrably false, it seems fear of it is not entirely misplaced.

It now appears that electronic voting machines – introduced, ironically, following a controversial recount during the 2000 election – are easily hacked. Hackers demonstrated as much at this year’s DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas. In fact, it took less than ninety minutes to crack the barely-secured machines.

Voting Machines – The Competition

During DEF CON, a kernel* of hackers raced to compromise 30 electronic voting machines. The machines – former Government property bought on eBay – ranged from Diebolds to Sequoia and WinVote. The WinVote machine in particular appeared to be simple to hack. Accordingly, hackers accessed the machine by exploiting the Windows XP MS03-026 vulnerability over Wi-Fi.

*From this point forward, ‘kernal’ is the collective noun for a group of hackers. Pass it on.

“Weak and Susceptible”

The conference exposed existing fears over voting machine vulnerabilities. Jake Braun, a cybersecurity lecturer at the University of Chicago, told The Register:

“Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how.

The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries – including Russia, North Korea, Iran – possess the capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining principles of democracy and threatening our national security.”

Russia “Upped the Ante”

If any potential US adversary is paying attention to this development, it’s Russia. The nation is already embroiled in accusations of influencing the last US Presidential election. Douglas Lute, former US NATO Ambassador and current Principal at Cambridge Global Advisors, explained:

“Elections have always been the concern and constitutional responsibility of state and local officials. But when Russia decided to interlope in 2016, it upped the ante.

This is now a grave national security concern that isn’t going away. In the words of former FBI Director James Comey, ‘They’re coming after America. They will be back.’”