Election Security Challenges Escalate
Foreign influence campaigns are intensifying as we get closer to election day. Even though the US is far better prepared than in previous elections, that is not stopping the Russians, Chinese and Iranians, among others.
One thing that is happening in this election that did not happen in the past is real time response to these interference campaigns.
For example, the Russian produced video that showed an individual tearing up ballots for Trump. In less than 24 hours the FBI had figured out where it was coming from and multiple public officials explained why it was a fake.
But human beings are still a challenge.
In three poor, rural, southern Colorado counties, it was discovered that a printing company’s error on the paper ballots made them unscannable by computer. But Colorado law already has a remedy for this and the counties have invoked it. It requires multiple teams of multiple people triple checking each other’s work to transcribe the ballots to pieces of paper that are scannable.
Ultimately, this was a human error.
Next, it was reported today that the Colorado Secretary of State published a spreadsheet on its website that contained the passwords to some number of pieces of election equipment. The spreadsheet had been online for several months. The Secretary of State said that two passwords are required to get into the equipment in question and that they can only get accessed locally – no Internet connection. As a precaution, the Secretary says that there are people in the field now changing the compromised passwords. The details on this one are light until the emergency remediation is complete. She said she would not have disclosed it if it had not come out in the press. Not exactly transparency in action.
Again, human error, but there is enough defense in depth and rapid response to contain the damage.
This would not have happened in, say 2008. Or 2012. Or 2016. The system continues to evolve from a security perspective in spite of a variety of threats. The human threat is the hardest to stop.
Finally, ballot boxes in Washington state and Oregon were set on fire by an incendiary device. In one box the fire suppression system worked and while three ballots were damaged, no votes were lost. In the other fire, hundreds of ballots were damaged. Devices at both scenes were found with markings saying “Free Gaza”. Whether this was the work of a pro-Palestinian group or someone trying to create chaos is unknown.
If the election outcomes were predicted to be lopsided then this would not matter as much, but since the elections are predicted to be very close we don’t know how efforts do create chaos will play out.
It is likely, however, to play into the hands of election deniers, whether there is any truth to it or not.
What this means is a lot of diligence is required in multiple ways – foreign influence, human error and criminal activity. These elections won’t be perfect but it is unlikely that the imperfections could affect the outcome of any races.
Stay tuned; this is not over.
Credit: Data Breach Today, 9News, 9News and CNN
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