Breaking Down Election Security: Points of Vulnerability and Solutions

The importance of cybersecurity in the context of the democratic process has become undeniable—with nation-state hackers setting their sights on elections as effective vehicles for attack, disruption, and social unrest. Christopher Wray, the Director of the FBI, testified to Congress that U.S...

Voatz Internet Voting App Is Insecure

This paper describes the flaws in the Voatz Internet voting app: "The Ballot is Busted Before the Blockchain: A Security Analysis of Voatz, the First Internet Voting Application Used in U.S. Federal Elections." Abstract: In the 2018 midterm elections, West Virginia became the first state in the...

Researchers: Hackers Can Seize Control of Ballots Cast Using the Voatz Voting App

Security researchers have found key flaws in a mobile voting app that some states plan to use in the 2020 election that can allow hackers to launch both client- and server-side attacks that can easily manipulate or even delete someone’s vote, as well as prevent a reliable audit from taking place...

CVE-2020-8988

The Voatz application 2020-01-01 for Android allows only 100 million different PINs, which makes it easier for attackers after using root access to make a copy of the local database to discover login credentials and voting history via an offline brute-force approach...

CVE-2020-8989

In the Voatz application 2020-01-01 for Android, the amount of data transmitted during a single voter's vote depends on the different lengths of the metadata across the available voting choices, which makes it easier for remote attackers to discover this voter's choice by sniffing the network. Fo...

Design/Logic Flaw

The Voatz application 2020-01-01 for Android allows only 100 million different PINs, which makes it easier for attackers after using root access to make a copy of the local database to discover login credentials and voting history via an offline brute-force approach...

Voting App Flaws Could Have Let Hackers Manipulate Results

New research from MIT shows that the Voatz app appears to have some glaring security holes...

SQL Injection

increments is vulnerable to SQL injection. The vulnerability exists as it improperly handles voting data, and allows additional votes to be created...

SQL Injection Vulnerability in 51 Micro Voting System

51 Micro Voting System is a platform system that provides customers with online voting services through the Internet. There is a SQL injection vulnerability in 51MicroVoting System, which can be exploited by attackers to obtain sensitive information in the database...

Email Voted a Weak Link for Election Security, with DMARC Lagging

As the 2020 Presidential election looms closer in the United States, a key focus will be on securing election infrastructure to prevent tampering. In a recent analysis, researchers found that email remains a potential weak link, with most counties failing to implement DMARC protections. DMARC whi...

Election Machine Insecurity Story

Interesting story of a flawed computer voting machine and a paper ballot available for recount. All ended well, but only because of that paper backup. Vote totals in a Northampton County judge's race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across mor...

Microsoft to Reward Hackers for Finding Bugs in Open Source Election Software

Fair elections are the lifelines of democracy, but in recent years election hacking has become a hot topic worldwide. Whether it's American voting machines during the 2016 presidential election or India's EVMs during 2014 general elections, the integrity, transparency, and security of electronic...

Introducing the ElectionGuard Bounty program

Today we are launching the ElectionGuard Bounty program. In May 2019, we announced the release of ElectionGuard, a free open-source SDK to make voting more secure, transparent, and accessible. ElectionGuard enables end-to-end verification of elections, open results to third-party organizations fo...

Introducing the ElectionGuard Bounty program

Today we are launching the ElectionGuard Bounty program. In May 2019, we announced the release of ElectionGuard, a free open-source SDK to make voting more secure, transparent, and accessible. ElectionGuard enables end-to-end verification of elections, open results to third-party organizations fo...

A week in security (September 23 – 29)

Last week on Labs, we highlighted an Emotet campaign using Snowden’s new book as a lure, discussed how 15,000 webcams are vulnerable to attack, how insurance data security laws skirt political turmoil, and how the new iOS exploit checkm8 allows permanent compromise of iPhones. Other cybersecurity...

Some Voting Machines Still Have Decade-Old Vulnerabilities

The results of the 2019 Defcon Voting Village are in—and they paint an ugly picture for voting machine security...

A week in security (August 26 – September 1)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we analysed the Android xHelper trojan, we wondered why the Nextdoor app would send out letters on behalf of their customers, reported about a study that explores the clickjacking problem across top Alexa-ranked websites, wondered how to get the board to invest in...

Hackers Take on Darpa's $10 Million Voting Machine

At this year's Defcon hacking conference, Darpa brought the beginnings of what it hopes will be impervious hardware...

Election Security Threats: From Misinformation to Voting Machine

Election security continues to be a top concern – from social media misinformation campaigns, to vulnerabilities in the actual voting machines themselves. At Black Hat USA 2019, Threatpost caught up with Matt Olney, director of threat intelligence at Cisco Talos, to discuss the challenges that...

I'm Leaving IBM

Today is my last day at IBM. If you've been following along, IBM bought my startup Resilient Systems in Spring 2016. Since then, I have been with IBM, holding the nicely ambiguous title of "Special Advisor." As of the end of the month, I will be back on my own. I will continue to write and speak,...