Monday, 23 December 2024

The ‘Most Secure Election in History’ Means Remote Access From Serbia and Using 10 Year Old Passwords

Steve Bannon's War Room
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Remember when they told us we had the "most secure election in history?”

What they meant was our elections were accessed remotely from Belgrade, Serbia, on systems that have used the same basic passwords (like dvscorp08!, literally) for over 10 years.

 

 

These are just a few nuggets about the 2020 Election that came to light during the first hearing in DeKalb County Republican Party, Inc. v. Brad Raffensperger, a lawsuit trying to force the Secretary of State to do his job, follow the law, and secure the 2024 Election in Georgia.

The case is not about 2020, but the consequences of that stolen election reverberate still. Had the cheating not been so brazen, and gone undetected like in so many other elections, we wouldn’t know just how insecure our elections are.

Which brings us to the encryption keys, and the egregious lack of security of electronic voting systems, which is the basis for the lawsuit against Raffensperger. Prior litigation involving the electronic machines in Arizona led to an investigation uncovering the encryption keys, which are ubiquitously used in cybersecurity to keep information secure and confidential, are kept unprotected and in plain text on Dominion’s voting systems, rather than safely secured in a cryptographic module as required by the Election Assistance Commission. It works like a code. These various keys use an algorithm to scramble sensitive information, which requires a key to decrypt to read or access the voting systems. Putting these keys in plain text, which is how Dominion stores them in every election system experts have examined from multiple states, leaves the entire system, and election results, vulnerable to manipulation.

In the words of Ben Cotton, a cyber and forensics expert with over 27 years of experience, who uncovered one of the largest hacks of federal government computers in our Country’s history, testified, "What they’ve done here is the equivalent of writing in big bold letters the combination [to the bank vault] on the wall next to the lock.”

Cotton explained how easy it would be for an insider or outsider with access to alter election results without detection. Clay Parikh, who used to test electronic voting systems for Election Assistance Commission certification, demonstrated just how easy these keys are to find. He used them to locate passwords to the administrative accounts of the election system, with which "you could basically do anything you wanted to.”

 

 

Raffensperger has been aware of this problem since at least March of 2024, according to an email sent by his general counsel Charlene McGowan, who has played a key role in covering up investigations into voter fraud in Georgia in 2020. During the hearing, the attorneys did not dispute the fact that the encryption keys are not secure.

In fact, Raffensperger’s own office has previously admitted in a court briefing how important encryption codes are, arguing their disclosure "would compromise election security.”

And yet Raffensperger has done nothing to secure the election system in Georgia, which is mandated by law to be in compliance with certification requirements.

"If I’m looking at it from a hackers point of view, hallelujah,” Cotton said of the state of Georgia’s election system. "If I’m looking at it from a cybersecurity perspective, I can’t believe that anybody would ever do this.

"If you’re talking about the criticality of ensuring the integrity of the vote, which is the base for our democracy, then how could you ever leave this unprotected?” he added. "I quite find it, frankly, appalling.”

There is no legitimate reason to leave encryption keys in plain text and use the same password since 2008. And this problem is not limited to Georgia. Dominion was used in 28 states in 2020.

The writ of mandamus filed by the DeKalb Republican Party, and joined by 36 other counties in an amicus brief, seeks a court order to force Raffensperger to follow the law and provide oversight and transparency of the election results, requesting within 24 hours of the election all system logs, cast vote records, and ballot images for inspection to help ensure no manipulation occurs.

The case sits in the hands of Judge Scott McAfee, who has promised to issue a ruling on Raffensperger’s motion to dismiss and request for a directed verdict. If he denies their motions, a second hearing will take place next week.

The judge must decide if laws still matter, or if Georgia will unlawfully continue to cede its elections to an unaccountable third-party vendor that has a habit of going after anyone who questions the security of their voting machines.

Regardless, the encryption key issue has already exposed how there never was a real and proper investigation into what happened in 2020, if, after all this time, we’re just now learning these voting systems can and were remotely accessed from a foreign country. But it also offers a chance to secure our elections in 2024.

Every state can look into its systems and check if they are secure. And every state can provide transparency over their elections, requiring electronic systems to record and maintain the Cast Vote Record, preserve ballot images at the precinct level, all without disrupting the voter experience. It’s not too late or close to the election. It may be just in time.


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