July 18, 2018

Voting machine maker admits installing hackable software

Daily Beast - The nation’s top voting-machine maker has admitted installing remote-access software on election-management systems that it sold over a period of six years, in what one U.S. senator described as “the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.” In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software admitted that it had “provided pcAnywhere remote connection software… to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,” which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

.... The remote-access software created an opportunity for hackers to breach the machines. Election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet for security reasons. ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

See: https://www.thedailybeast.com/voting-machine-vendor-put-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-us

Anonymous said...

See: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb4ezy/top-voting-machine-vendor-admits-it-installed-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-states

Anonymous said...

Let me if I understand the situation we are in...

First, there is gerrymandering, to favor one party v. another. OK, nothing new I guess.

Then, voter rolls are being purged... for one reason or another.

And, it seems, Russian hackers have the ability to sway public opinion just as well as the best campaign managers.

Now, you say that the suspected 'hackable' voting machines are an actual Fact!

Jeeesch... who'd of thunk that I would pine for the "Good-Old-Days" when the worst electioneering tricks might have included copying names off gravestones and using that information to send people to vote in their place.

That, and maybe offering Liquor to agreeable individuals, for a promise.

Or, as an extreme, just hanging around the entrance to voting places and either threatening / encouraging people to vote one way or another.

Ahhh... the 'simpler life'...