What is the vulnerability of Estonia's electronic voting system linked to a cyber attack?

ByDean Terry

Since the late 1990s, we have been able to vote for various elections using computer networks "Electronic votingThe use of "is often advanced everywhere in the world. For voters it is possible to vote from home without going to the polling place and it is a system that brings merit such as cost merit and quick voting work for organizations that manage elections However, it can be said that there are still many problems still, as a matter of course.

Even in the world, even in Estonia, which is regarded as "an advanced country of electronic voting," electronic voting has penetrated even to the national level, but it is also a fact that there are disadvantages such as receiving a big cyber attack at the same time. A report on the survey conducted by the research team on the current status of electronic voting in Estonia has been announced.

Our Findings | Independent Report on E-voting in Estonia
https://estoniaevoting.org/findings/

How Russia could easily hack its neighbors' elections
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/13/how-russia-could-easily-hack-its-neighbors-elections/

In April 2007, the Estonian government was exposed to a massive cyber attack. Attempts to target equipment that constitutes a network such as a server targeting financial institutions and government agenciesDoS attackIt was an incident that took place, but behind it there are persistent voices rushed to the existence of Russia.

ByJonathan Davis

At the same time, there was a movement to relocate the statue of Soviet soldiers built in the period under Soviet rule in Estonia to the suburbs, and that the Russian government raised a voice of condemnation to support this rumor It is getting. When we say the national level cyber attack, it seems as if it appears as setting to appear in a spy movie,NY Times attack by Chinese hacker group(2012), Cyber ​​Attacks to Iran by the US Government, etc. In fact, it can be said that attacks that are being done on a daily basis in the real world.

A report that Internet security research team surveyed the situation in Estonia revealed that the electronic voting system widely adopted in EstoniaI-VotingBy using the vulnerability, it turned out that it is possible for attackers to attack without being noticed by third parties and specific nation who intend to attack.

Estonia is the country that has introduced the world's most advanced electronic voting system, and in the elections conducted in 2013, about 25% of the voters used the electronic balloting system, which is a quarter of the total. About the current state that can be said as an advanced country of electronic voting, many Estonian citizens think that they are "proud". In i-Voting, which enables voting from home PC, first insert an ID card with a dedicated chip in the ID card reader connected to your PC, perform password authentication, log in to the voting system Then vote. The system using this ID card is used not only for electronic voting but also for banks and other services in common.

ByEuropean Parliament

Alex Herderman, a member of the research team and an associate professor in the computer science field at the University of Michigan, in order to investigate the safety of the electronic voting system used in Estonia, a dummy system In the laboratory and conducted verification on what kind of problems are present in the series of voting procedures. As a result, it turned out that you can manipulate the election results by both hacking to the voter's computer and populating the voting system with malware.

Mr. Herderman pointed out "The operational security level and the professional consciousness of some of the organizations managing the voting are very lacking", Hurderman pointed out strictly, When hacking is attempted, the possibility of being hijacked without being sensed or rejected by the system is made possible in multiple dimensions ", reveals that the danger is extremely high. When Mr. Herderman verified on the dummy system, when the PC used for voting was contaminated with malware, the hacker side could easily obtain the user's ID and password, and also handed over the contents of the vote It is now possible to add. Also, malware that intrudes into the server of the voting management systemTrojan horseIt is said that it was able to conceal and illegally vote "regular" and manipulate the number of votes of each party and create the opposite election result.

System used in EstoniaOther thanIn the electronic voting system designed in recent years, the flow of communication has been completely encrypted (end-to-end: E2E encryption) from the beginning to the end, designed to ensure the security of communication contents It is being done. Although it is indispensable to improve the reliability of information now, the information encrypted in the system adopted in Estonia is a part of the whole, and voter's PC, server It has been found that the security measures that depend too much on the composition, election management staff 's good intentions are taken.

Also, as a whole, "loose" management thought was adopted as a problem. A lecture will be given on the procedure for setting up the system for voting in the orientation held for the person in charge at each polling station and the procedure for downloading the program for the system from the server will be introduced here Used by ordinary HTTP connection not encrypted is used.


Other than that, the survey team has reported a number of problems in the report, such as alteration of the system to be carried out during the election period, work with USB memory of an individual who is not permitted to use, opacity of the system It enumerates.

Comprehensively, it was forced to declare that it had problems with the safety and reliability of the whole system by program remodeling which was repeatedly repeated many times, based on the old-generation design philosophy Estonia's The survey results, which revealed the actual state of the election system, was that the investigation team reported in the report that Estonia's electronic election system put too much credibility in the server and personal PC, "We declared to stop using the system until the safety concerns of the Estonian government were all improved. However, the Estonian Electronic Voting Committee said that "safety aspects are settled and all security procedures are in a safe state"Announcement of the statement onlineI showed a posture of refusal.

Furthermore, regarding the attitude of Estonia that continues to refuse to advice that the country's system is safe, criticism has been raised from the country.

At the time the i-Voting was introduced in the beginning of 2000, it was recognized that the trial was a breakthrough, but still the system designer started to operate with some problems postponed It is clear that it is. The realization of the authentication system throughout the whole system as mentioned above was one of the most promising examples, but operation has been continued without being repaired in the future even though the reservation point which was said to be "need to be repaired in the future" It is said that it is one of the causes of the national-level cyber attack caused by this, and the investigation team says, "Although there is a possibility that it will be rebuilt in the future, at the moment, the electronic voting system by i-Voting We are announcing a report that concludes that the operation is not appropriate.

(PDF file)IVotingReport.pdf
https://estoniaevoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IVotingReport.pdf


With the current situation that the possibility that the voting result operation is being carried out even in the conventional paper-based election has been repeatedly mentioned, the electronic voting system established on the PC and net system becomes a black box There are a lot of parts, and even if fraud is done, it is highly likely that you will not be able to know about it. Although it can be said that there is no doubt that the merit of introducing the electronic voting system is great in terms of convenience and cost, the major premise is absolute security, unity of the organization and individuals that operate it, It is indispensable to conduct objective and scientific investigations and prompt response even when it occurs.

In the Internet world where human good will and malice are mixed, placing sexual theory only as judgment criterion can be said to be a crisis dangerous situation. The design and operation policy according to the reality, the elimination of the room that allows arbitrary change that possibly misleads the whole, and the structure making it possible to produce the same result regardless of who operates it It seems to be said that it is equally important in any other society.