election systems Archives

Episode 96: State Elections Officials on Front Line against Russian Hackers

May 14, 2018 Paul Roberts

In this episode of The Security Ledger Podcast (#96): with primary elections taking place in states across the United States in the coming weeks, we talk to John Dickson about how state elections offices have become the front line in a pitched battle with state-sponsored hackers – with the fate of a 240 year democracy hanging in the balance. Also: we talk about the looming threat posed by so-called “deep fake” videos that use computer manipulation to make famous celebrities appear to say nearly anything.

Podcast Episode 90: WannaCry zombie haunts Boeing, UL tests for cyber security and Harvard war games election hacking

April 2, 2018 Paul Roberts

In this week’s podcast, Episode #90: has the WannaCry ransomware returned from the dead? We talk with an expert from Juniper Networks about what might be behind the outbreak at Boeing. Also: Underwriters Lab and Johnson Controls join us on the podcast to talk about a recent milestone: UL’s award of the first ever Level 3 certificate for cyber security. And we speak with one of the organizers of one of an election security table top exercise last week at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Episode 77: From Russian Hacking to Mr. Robot Our Most Popular Podcasts of 2017

January 1, 2018 Paul Roberts

In this, our final episode of 2017, we look back at our most popular segments from the past year – many of which touched on issues that (surprise, surprise) crossed the boundary between information security and politics. Among the most popular segments were discussions of hacking the U.S. election systems, a primer on the cyber capabilities of North Korea with Crowd Strike, a conversation of the case against the Russian firm Kaspersky Lab and an interview with the guy who helps make the hacking scenes in the USA Network’s Mr. Robot look so real.

Our Analog Future: Election Hacking puts Paper Ballots back in Vogue

September 22, 2017 Paul Roberts

Virginia is reverting from electronic to paper ballots while Rhode Island’s legislature this week passed a law to mandate audits comparing paper and electronic voting records.

It’s the Corruption, Stupid: why Russians aren’t the biggest threat to Election Security

August 7, 2017 Paul Roberts

In-brief: Russian hackers aren’t the biggest threat to the security and integrity of elections says Bev Harris of Black Box Voting. Instead, it’s a more common enemy: run of the mill political corruption, mostly at the local level. Also: Eric Hodge of CyberScout talks about the challenges of helping states secure their election systems. Problem number one: recalcitrant voting machine makers.