Software for forwarding election results is vulnerable’ – NU.nl

The software by polling stations used at the election by sending, is obsolete and can be manipulated. Also, there are insufficient rules for the running of the software.

That’s according to research by security expert Sijmen Ruwhof in command of RTL News. According to Ruwhof is “the average iPad is better protected than the Dutch electoral systems”.

Voters during the elections with pencil and ballot votes. The counting is also done by hand, but the results are with the program Supporting Software for Elections (OSV) forwarded.

That program by the electoral council on the CD-ROM supplied. The biggest problem is according to Ruwhof that OSV on each pc should be installed.

So the software can be used on an old computer with Windows XP, since 2014 no security updates. If such a computer is connected to the internet, then the system open to malicious software that the results can be changed.

to Vote by the polling stations on an unprotected usb stick stored, then to a regiopunt. There are the votes with the software are added together.

Excel

The system works with the academic transcripts via an unprotected Excel file to be processed. It can not be controlled or there is cheating with the information, says the research.

According to security expert Rop Gonggrijp “Chinese and Russians are simply the result of messing around”. A study of Gonggrijp made there ten years ago the government stopped the use of voting computers.

Research

Minister Ronald Plasterk (Home Affairs) said last week that it is examined whether the parliamentary elections in march, are vulnerable to manipulation by hackers and other authorities.

This is a look into the possible vulnerability of the voting process, the persons involved in the elections, and the provision of information.

Papers

If there is reason to think that the program for the forwarding of the results has been manipulated, the paper results still to be checked.

According to Plasterk, there are no indications that other countries in the recent past have tried to Dutch elections to beïnvoeden.

Member of parliament Kees Verhoeven of the Dutch political party D66 wants, as soon as possible a debate on the subject. Plasterk had in answer to Questions in parliament claimed that the votes do not count digital can be hacked.

By: NU.nl