J. Alex Halderman - I Hacked an Election!

All cybersecurity experts who have given electronic voting machines any thought agree. These machines have got to go. To show you why, I’m running a mock election using the same dangerous and obsolete machines still in use today. Our election will find out whether Michigan students prefer their own university or our arch rival Ohio State. Here we are. After the chaos of the 2000 election, we were promised a modern and dependable way to vote. I’m here to tell you that the electronic voting machines Americans got to solve the problem of voting integrity — they turned out to be an awful idea. One vote for McCain. Huh?! That’s because people like me can hack them all too easily. I’m a computer scientist who has hacked a lot of electronic voting machines. I even turned one machine into a video game console. Imagine what the Russians and North Koreans can do. I’ve even gone to Congress to raise the alarm. Our highly computerized election infrastructure is vulnerable to sabotage and even to cyber-attacks This is the same electronic voting machine used in Georgia and parts of Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and even in swing states like Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania. Millions of Americans voted on paperless electronic voting machines in the 2016 election. Who are you going to vote for? Hundred percent Michigan. Obviously Michigan. Michigan. But here’s a little secret between you and me. I’ve already hacked these worthless machines. Step one: buy a voting machine on Ebay. Or, if you are the North Koreans, hack the manufacturer and steal their software code. Step two: write a virus. Step three: email your virus to every election official responsible for programming the voting machines with new ballots. Many of these officials are easy to find online. Step four: sip coffee and wait. Step five: hijack the ballot programming and let the election officials copy your invisible malicious code onto the voting machines. Step six: watch your code silently steal votes. All right, here are the results from the electronic voting machines. Ohio State wins 131 to 108. There’s a good reason we computer scientists are paranoid. It’s a golden age for hackers. The computer virus that destroyed Iranian nuclear equipment — This is one of the largest data breaches in history. More than one billion of its accounts were hacked. What chance do the people running your local elections really have against Russia or North Korea? OK, everyone. I hacked the voting machines. I do have the real results, because we also counted on paper. Michigan wins! Michigan won in a landslide. And I can say this confidently because I have the real results from the safest and simplest solution. Paper ballots. We need to take a hard look at the equipment that actually records and reports votes. Even though the Senate intelligence committee is finally showing some understanding of the problem, it’s not enough. All states in this country, the people ultimately responsible for how we vote, In a real election, an official could quickly scan these paper ballots and shortly after, have a human verify the results. Paper plus audits: all elections should be run this way. But if you don’t want to believe me or every single expert in cybersecurity who’s thought this through, then take it from this guy. It’s old fashioned, but it’s always good to have a paper backup system of voting. It’s called paper.