U.S. States are Asking the Feds to Give Voting Systems a Clean Bill of Health

The hacking attacks that have been happening to the U.S. has most states on edge about the upcoming elections.

So far, nine states have asked the FBI for cyber scans to ensure the election authorities’ network is free from vulnerabilities. According to the DHS, they want more states to sign up. The threat is believed to be coming from Russian State hackers, gathering intelligence, and trying to persuade the elections. While it would be impossible for them to physically change the outcome of the election in November, they can put doubt into voters by manipulating voter registration websites, voter databases, and election tracking systems.

Los Angeles Registrar-recorder and County Clerk, Dean Logan said that there have been several attempts to get into databases across the county.

“Across the whole network of services and online applications for the county there are frequent indications of attempts to get into those systems,” Logan said.

The majority of states are using machines that generate a paper record, so audits and recounts are possible if need be. Ohio and Pennsylvania are among some of the exceptions to this however, and both Trump and Clinton are making them priority.

Electronic voting that is in 50 out of 67 counties in Pennsylvania have no paper option. Many of these counties use the touch screen machines, which are very vulnerable to hacking attacks. A team of researchers lead by Andrew Appel, has been hacking and researching the voting machines in a warehouse.

The touch screen machines aren’t hook up to the internet. However, hackers all over the world can still do severe damage. Someone who would have access to the machines could insert a malware carrying cartridge into the machines themselves. This would reprogram the software, which leads to even further damage, not only to just the machines system, but into voters lives as well.  Hacking has been in major headlines the past few months, and only seems to be getting more frequent. No matter who is behind it one thing is for certain, it’s a huge job for law enforcement agencies worldwide, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

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