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Georgia election server reportedly wiped in wake of lawsuit
There's something going on in Georgia. First, the state rejected help from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to inspect its voting equipment for potential hacker inroads. Strangely, the man responsible for this and a massive private data leak, Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp, was placed on a DHS election cybersecurity panel. Now the Associated Press reports that a computer server important to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials has been wiped clean right after the suit was filed.
DefCon event shows how easy it is to hack voting systems
It's no secret that it's possible to hack voting systems. But how easy is it, really? Entirely too easy, if you ask researchers at this year's DefCon. They've posted a report detailing how voting machines from numerous vendors held up at the security conference, and... it's not good. Every device in DefCon's "Voting Machine Hacking Village" was compromised in some way, whether it was by exploiting network vulnerabilities or simple physical access.
Two states say the DHS is wrong about election hacking
Just a few days ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally revealed which states were targets of Russian election hacking attempts after having known itself for nearly a year. But Reuters reports that two states are saying the DHS is wrong and their election systems weren't targeted.
DHS finally reveals the states Russia hacked during the elections
State officials finally know if they serve one of the 21 states Russia tried to hack during the 2016 Presidential elections. Homeland Security and other agencies found out in 2016 that Russian government hackers tried to get into some states' voting registration systems, but it took a year for the secretaries of state to convince the DHS to disclose its findings. The agency has only decided to tell authorities if they were targeted during the elections on Friday, because it "would help [them] make security decisions" way before the 2018 midterm elections begin.
Virginia to replace voting machines over hacking concerns
States are understandably nervous about the security of voting machines given both the possibility of Russian interference in the 2016 election and machine makers' own shortfalls. And in Virginia's case, officials aren't taking any chances. The state's election board has approved a Department of Elections recommendation to make counties to replace direct-recording electronic voting machines with devices that produce a clear paper trail. Virginia had already instituted a law phasing out touchscreen voting hardware by 2020, but the new move effectively bumps up that end date to November 7th, when the state holds elections for the governorship and other key positions.
Facebook pledges funding to non-profit election security group
Just last week, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center launched Defending Digital Democracy, an across-the-aisles bipartisan effort to find ways to protect against election hacking. The group includes campaign managers from Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns as well Google and Facebook security staffers. A new report on Reuters says that Facebook will also provide an initial funding of $500,000 to the nonprofit.
South Carolina hit with 150,000 Election Day hacking attempts
More information about the scale of attempted election hacks has been released and it involves a rather surprising target -- South Carolina. Donald Trump took the state by 54.9 percent and there was never any doubt that he had the advantage in the historically republican-swinging South Carolina. However, even with almost certain projected results, the state's voter-registration system was hit with nearly 150,000 hack attempts.
Report: Russia hacked election systems in 39 US states
Russia's US election meddling was much more widespread than the public has been told, according to a report from Bloomberg. Hackers attacked voting systems in 39 states, accessed campaign finance databases in one state and tried to delete or alter voter data in Illinois. While officials don't believe the attackers changed any results, the situation was serious enough that President Obama took the unusual step of complaining to the Kremlin on "red phone" back channels.
