Reply #266: Actual hack test of Diebold touchscreen

[Zan_of_Texas]

Almost no one seems to have read the one actual Red Team hack test of Diebold equipment.

Here is the best story I've seen on it.

Briefly, there were many flaws, but the worst weakness was that if someone knew a phone number, they could call in on a laptop from anywhere to the central Diebold tabulator (Windows-based) and "edit" the election, leave the system, and leave no trace of their visit.

Highlight:
Meanwhile, William A. Arbaugh, an assistant computer science professor at the University of Maryland, College Park and part of the team, easily sneaked his way into the state's computers by way of his modem. Once in, he had access to change votes from actual precincts - because he knew how to exploit holes in the Microsoft software.


Remarkably (or not), the State of Maryland commissioned high techies, formerly of NSA, to hack the Diebold system in a real test. Then, when the results came out, the State of Maryland went ahead and bought Diebold, saying it was basically everything they ever wanted.

So, no pre-installed algorithm is necessary -- just a phone number.


Md. computer testers cast a vote: Election boxes easy to mess with

By Stephanie Desmon
Sun Staff (Maryland)
January 30, 2004
<http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-te.md.machine30jan30,0,4050694.story?coll=bal-local-headlines>

For a week, the computer whizzes laid abuse - both high- and low-tech -on the six new briefcase-sized electronic voting machines sent over by the state. One guy picked the locks protecting the internal printers and memory cards. Another figured out how to vote more than once - and get away with it. Still another launched a dial-up attack, using his modem to slither through an electronic hole in the State Board of Elections software. Once inside, he could easily change vote totals that come in on Election Day.

"My guess is we've only scratched the surface," said Michael A. Wertheimer, who spent 21 years as a cryptologic mathematician at the National Security Agency. He is now a director at RABA Technologies in Columbia, the firm that the state hired for about $75,000 to look at Maryland's new touch-screen voting machines scheduled to be unveiled in nearly every precinct in Maryland for the March 2 primary.

The state has no choice but to use its $55 million worth of AccuVote-TS machines made by Diebold Election Systems for the primary. The old optical scanners are gone. Yesterday, Wertheimer calmly presented his eight-member team's findings to committees in the House and Senate, explaining the weaknesses they discovered and a plan for how to plug many of the cracks, at least in the short run.

*Giddy geek speak *
Yet on a recent morning at his offices, Wertheimer's computer programmers were practically giddy as they invented new ways to muck up an election. Some were simple - like the lock-picking or just yanking the cords out of a machine's monitor, disabling it for the rest of the day. Other fiddling inspired round after round of excited geek speak, true gibberish to the untrained ear, to explain a host of attacks that could be launched up close or by modem.


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