Voting Under The Microscope

The November 2018 midterm contests have generated more scrutiny from a cybersecurity perspective than any election in recent memory due to the unprecedented high-profile data leaks and Russian-backed social media disinformation efforts during the 2016 election cycle.

In addition to a potential reprisal of all the issues from 2016, some observers fear that the voting machines themselves could be tampered with by a nation-state actor or agent.

CRN spoke with 10 executives and technical leaders at Black Hat 2018 to separate fact from fear, and get a sense of the most realistic scenarios that could cause disruption in the runup to the election or at the ballot box.

“A compromised user name or password is the single easiest way in for bad actors since the system isn’t able to distinguish between the intended or an unintended user entering the right password, according to Jason Hart, Gemalto vice president and CTO for data protection. By gaining access to election data, Hart said bad actors can cause reputational damage and discredit a candidate or their entire campaign”.