Every conceivable layer of the election process is completely riddled with vulnerabilities, so yes, hacking elections is easy!

The biggest center of attention needs to be the Secretaries of State. They're the ones that manage the elections. At the end of the day, they're the ones that need to be held accountable.

The disturbingly techno-illiterate and cyber-hygienically lackadaisical and shockingly arrogant responses by the National Association of Secretaries of States when we at ICIT repeatedly showed them what their vulnerabilities were and exactly how elections could be compromised is a betrayal of trust to offer safe and legitimate elections. The technical vulnerabilities littering our election systems is only part of the problem.

A Nation State or Cyber-Mercenary won’t hack e-voting machines one by one. This takes too long and will have minimal impact. Instead, they’ll take an easier approach like spear phishing the manufacturer with malware and poison the voting machine update pre-election and allow the manufacturer to update each individual machine with a self-deleting payload that will target the tabulation process.

Consider all tabulation systems infected by bad actors until a third party, not affiliated with the manufacturer or election officials, proves they are secure.

What do you mean “Should we worry about cyber adversaries getting into state voter registration databases?” They’re already in and selling exfiltrated voter registration data on the dark web! Next election cycle black hats will be selling ‘access as service’.