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To calm things down a bit keep in mind the target was a backwater agency called the "Election Assistance Commission" which is not exactly the hive-center of dem
by valgaze 10y ago
To calm things down a bit keep in mind the target was a backwater agency called the "Election Assistance Commission" which is not exactly the hive-center of democracy:
"The security firm, Recorded Future, was monitoring underground electronic markets where hackers buy and sell wares and discovered someone offering log-on credentials for access to computers at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, company executives said.
Posing as a potential buyer, the researchers engaged in a conversation with the hacker..."
Sounds like somebody found a vuln in probably a creaky lowest-bid government contractor website and wanted to monetize.
I've never heard of this "Election Assistance Commission" agency before but it sounds like they exist to help US states implement a law from 2002 called the Help America Vote Act (HAVA.)
I'm not at all comfortable with all these infiltrations, but this "American Election Commission" has done a pretty awful job, hacked or not.
The fact that voter fraud/suppression shenanigans exist or that there's any ambiguity about how votes gets counted indicates to me they're assisting a pretty screwball election system.
- arghnoname 10y agoI know someone who used to work there. They don't do much. One of their initial responsibilities was ensuring that funds for HAVA (Help America Vote Act) were dispensed and electronic voting machines were certified following the hanging chad adventure. As we all know, electronic voting machines aren't so hot and in my personal opinion, the EAC hasn't done much very effectively and has been under fairly regular attack in congress and under (maybe toothless) threat of being shut down. I don't think they have any actual power over much of anything in elections because that power is distributed to the the state level secretary of state's, so their role is more advisory at best and also is disjoint from the more powerful FEC.
- ethbro 10y agoThe amount of power they have isn't as important as the amount of network access they have. Have there been any steps towards coming up with a formal graph of privileged network links between government organizations? If A works with B & C, then if A is penetrated then B & C should be formally notified and audited as well.