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ITU researcher’s hack of a US voting machine makes headlines around the world

ITU / Press / News from ITU / ITU researcher’s hack of a US voting machine makes headlines around the world

ITU researcher’s hack of a US voting machine makes headlines around the world

Carsten Schürmann, Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, hacked an American WINVote machine at DEF CON, one of the world's largest hacker conventions. The hack has now been receiving a lot attention in some of the worlds most influential media.

Carsten Schürmann Computer Science Department Research algorithms democracy digitization e-government innovation IT security management

Written 1 August, 2017 10:10 by Jari Kickbusch

Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Politico, USA Today, CBS News are just a few of the many media organisations who have reported about a hack conducted by Carsten Schürmann, Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen.

Carsten Schürmann attended DEF CON, one of the world's largest hacker conventions, in Las Vegas. In the so-called Voting Machine Hacking Village, attendants were invited to hack voting machines. Shortly after his arrival, Carsten Schürmann demonstrated how to attack a WINVote machine remotely, a voting machine that was used in several states in US elections between 2004 and 2015.

Conducting the hack that Carsten Schürmann did, an attacker could change the vote totals stored on the machine, observe voters while they are voting or simply turn off the machine any time during voting day. Since the WINVote voting machine does not provide a paper trail, changes in the database would not be detectable.

Lots of insecure voting technology
The poor security record of the WINVote machine have been criticized by election technology researchers for years. As head of the Demtech project, which investigates how technology affects the trust of the voters, Carsten Schürmann has extensive experience with hacking voting machines, and his WINVote hack in Las Vegas wasn’t his first. However, he is happy about the high level of media attention, which shows how important the topic of election integrity has become for the voters.

"There will be important elections in the US in 2018 and 2020, where other nation states may want to exercise undue influence. It is important to take the right steps now, to make sure that these results are credible”, Carsten Schürmann ends.

11 international stories about the hack:

WALL STREET JOURNAL

FORBES

POLITICO

ACM

THE HILL

WIRED

CBS NEWS

PBS

USA TODAY

THE INDEPENDENT

DIE ZEIT

EL TRIBUNO

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