It is clear that the Russian involvement in American election will not be the last attack on America.
In mid-July of 2016, Neil Jenkins who is the director in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security discovered that the Illinois Board of Elections had been hacked. Soon it became clear that hacking in the presidential election itself was becoming a wider problem and that the vote’s security was a concern. Today, with the approach of the midterm elections, it appears that, once again, the American electronic voting system is highly susceptible to determined hackers. Despite the public’s concern, little effort has been made to fixing the vulnerabilities of the system.
Amazingly, Jenkins has already witnessed another fissure in our voting system defences in early August this year. This time, the attack he describes hit a key Arizona state government website and actually seems to have come from the same IP address used to attack Illinois in 2016. This time, Jenkins noted, the intruder modified their tracks to hide themselves.
This news is a blow to American democracy and should have raised an alarm to other states and the federal government. Many states have been reportedly complaining that their their voter registration network penetrated by hacks from the same IP address. This lead to obvious questions like: Does the IP address link indicate that the same people or groups are back? But the most important thing is that we return to using safe systems. Hey, American election administrators: A paper ballot works just fine!
Leave a Reply