As we reported last week, hackers at the Voter Hacking Village at Defcon in Las Vegas got access to 30 voting machines this weekend to look for exploits for how the machines could be hacked. Unfortunately, the exploits were both numerous and easy to hack, reports CNet. One hacker used a Windows XP exploit from 2003 to take control of a voting machine via a Wi-Fi network, allowing him to change the vote tally remotely.
Another hacker simply plugged a mouse and keyboard into the exposed USB ports on another machine and force closed the voting machine’s software via the standard “control-alt-delete” hotkey shortcut and then was able to install his own app on the machine and change the vote tally as easily as if he was editing a Microsoft Office document. The hackers hope their success will spur voting machine companies to increase their security in the future.
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