The FBI has reportedly told election officials in Arizona and Illinois that Russian hackers are pursuing their voters list. Federal officials have sent a warning to all state election officials that there could be attempts to hack any election related networks. Veracode Co-Founder Chris Wysopal ( @WeldPond) and Harvard Cyber Security Project Postdoctoral Fellow Ben Buchanan ( @BuchananBen) joined Jim to discuss potential election hacking.
Both Buchanan and Wysopal are concerned about a possible hack, and agree that there are vulnerable systems. "Anything online is vulnerable," said Wysopal.
If an online voting system were to get hacked, Wysopal said that there wouldn't be a good plan in place to verify what happened. Buchanan also raised concerns about post-election investigations. He said that with online systems, there is a lack of a paper trail, making it harder to investigate. He added that it would also be harder to do a recount with electronic voting.
They agreed that there needs to be a plan in place, in case there is a hack. Buchanan said that there needs to be a plan in place for this election, and the next. He said we should get ahead of the problem the best we can. "I don't think we've done that this election," he said.
Both guests said that they know people who could do this type of hacking. "There are serious risks with the candidates involved," said Buchanan. Wysopal raised the issue of lone hackers, who could do this. "Anywhere there's not a paper trail," Wysopal said he is worried.
