Tag Archive for: Election

UK election watchdog failed to discover system hack for 15 months

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The UK’s Electoral Commission today announced it suffered a cyberattack in August 2021, with attackers gaining access to registers that contained the names and addresses of anyone in the UK who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, as well as the names of those registered as overseas voters.

In a statement issued by the Electoral Commission via its website, the election watchdog said that although attackers first gained access to electoral registers and the commission’s email system in August, the hack wasn’t identified until October  2022, when the electoral body became aware of a suspicious pattern of log-in requests being made to its systems.

The commission said while it is “not able to know conclusively” what information had been accessed, the personal data most likely to have been accessible includes names, addresses, email addresses, and any other personal data sent to the commission by email or held on the electoral registers. Due to large parts of the UK’s electoral system still being paper based, however, “it would be very hard to use a cyber-attack to influence the [electoral] process.” The Commission also sought reassure those that might have been affected by the breach by noting that the hack will not impact an individual’s ability to take part in the democratic process or affect their current registration status or eligibility to vote.

“We regret that sufficient protections were not in place to prevent this cyber-attack. Since identifying it we have taken significant steps, with the support of specialists, to improve the security, resilience, and reliability of our IT systems,” Shaun McNally, the Electoral Commission chief executive, said in a statement.

In line with requirements under the law, McNally said the Electoral Commission notified the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours of identifying the breach and the ICO is currently investigating the incident.

“The Electoral Commission has contacted us regarding this incident and we are currently making enquiries,” a spokesperson for the ICO said in a statement. “We recognise this news may cause alarm to those who are worried they may be affected and we want to…

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Top election leaders worry ‘terrifying’ AI will dupe voters

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Top election leaders worry ‘terrifying’ AI will dupe voters

Semi-annual gathering of election leaders focuses on use of generative artificial intelligence, growing withdrawals from key election fraud prevention alliance


Chief National Investigative Correspondent

The potential use of content-generating artificial intelligence and deepfake videos to sway or dupe voters is a growing concern of secretaries of state across the country, according to interviews with a dozen and a half top election leaders at their semi-annual gathering held this week in the nation’s capital. “This is the number one issue that we’re talking about behind the scenes at this conference,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams. “It’s a big concern,” echoed David Scanlan, secretary of state in New Hampshire. Scott Schwab, the secretary of state in Kansas and newly-installed president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), said the challenge of AI in campaigns and elections is “very real, very fast.”Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen warned, “It can also be very damaging and destructive.”Legislation focuses on deepfakesPhil McGrane, who oversees Idaho elections as secretary of state, said he recently tried out a generative AI tool – and quickly discovered its fallibility. “I had it write a bio of me, and it provided information that was written very persuasively but was, in fact, inaccurate.”A few states are starting to take legislative action. In Washington, Steve Hobbs, the secretary of state, said he helped introduce legislation, signed into law in May by Gov. Jay Inslee, that “goes after the deepfakes” by requiring disclosure of manipulated videos in political ads. Such AI-distorted videos make it appear a speaker said something that, in reality, they did not. “We have to get ahead of this threat,” Hobbs said.WATCH FULL INTERVIEWS WITH TOP STATE ELECTION LEADERS AT THE END OF THIS STORY.“I think that it’s just going to…

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Turkey faces runoff election with Erdogan leading

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  • Neither Erdogan or his challenger pass 50% threshold
  • Rivals spar over election count
  • Erdogan ahead after 20-year rule

ISTANBUL, May 14 (Reuters) – Turkey headed for a runoff presidential vote after President Tayyip Erdogan outperformed projections in Sunday’s election as he sought to extend his two-decade rule, holding a sizable lead over his rival but falling short of an outright majority.

Neither Erdogan nor rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu cleared the 50% threshold needed to avoid a second round, to be held on May 28, in an election seen as a verdict on Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian path.

The presidential vote will decide not only who leads Turkey, a NATO-member country of 85 million, but also whether it reverts to a more secular, democratic path; how it will handle its severe cost of living crisis and manage key relations with Russia, the Middle East and the West.

Kilicdaroglu, who said he would prevail in the runoff, urged his supporters to be patient and accused Erdogan’s party of interfering with the counting and reporting of results.

But Erdogan performed better than pre-election polls had predicted, and he appeared in a confident and combative mood as he addressed his flag-waving, cheering supporters.

“We are already ahead of our closest rival by 2.6 million votes. We expect this figure to increase with official results,” Erdogan said.

With almost 97% of ballot boxes counted, Erdogan led with 49.39% of votes and Kilicdaroglu had 44.92%, according to state-owned news agency Anadolu. Turkey’s High Election Board gave Erdogan 49.49% with 91.93% of ballot boxes counted.

ERDOGAN HAS EDGE

The results reflected deep polarization in a country at a political crossroads. The vote was set to hand Erdogan’s ruling alliance a majority in parliament, giving him a potential edge heading into the runoff.

Opinion polls before the election had pointed to a very tight race but gave Kilicdaroglu, who heads a six-party alliance, a slight lead. Two polls on Friday even showed him above the 50% threshold.

“Erdogan will have an advantage in a second vote after his alliance did far better than the opposition’s alliance,” said Hakan Akbas, managing director of political advisory Strategic Advisory Services.

A…

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US cyberwarriors thwarted 2020 Iran election hacking attempt

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Iranian hackers broke into to a system used by a U.S. municipal government to publish election results in 2020 but were discovered by cyber soldiers operating abroad and kicked out before an attack could be launched, according to U.S. military and cybersecurity officials.

The system involved in the previously undisclosed breach was not for casting or counting ballots, but rather was used to report unofficial election results on a public website. The breach was revealed during a presentation this week at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, which is focused on cybersecurity. Officials did not identify the local government that was targeted.

“This was not a system used in the conduct of the election, but we are of course also concerned with systems that could weigh on the perception of a potential compromise,” said Eric Goldstein, who leads the cybersecurity division at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

If not expelled from the site, the hackers could have altered or otherwise disrupted the public-facing results page — though without affecting ballot-counting.

“Our concern is always that some type of website defacement, some type of (denial of service) attack, something that took the website down or defaced the website say on the night of the election, could make it look like the vote had been tampered with when that’s absolutely not true,” Major Gen. William J. Hartman, commander of U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, told conference attendees Monday.

Hartman said his team identified the intrusion as part of what he termed a “hunt-forward” mission, which gathers intelligence on and surveils adversaries and criminals. The team quickly alerted officials at the U.S. cybersecurity agency, who then worked with the municipality to respond to the intrusion.

Hartman said his team then acted “to ensure the malicious cyber actor no longer had access to the network and was unable to come back into the network in direct support of the elections.”

No details were released on how or from what country the Iranian intrusion was detected.

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