BG Staff
The results of US elections 2016 were a stunning rebuke to many. But the news of hacking of government body that was responsible for the security of voting systems aroused a lot of frustration among many people. According to reports, at the time of election the US Election Assistant Commission was hacked by itself. The commission itself confirmed the potential intrusion of an outside source.
Hacking has been affecting many official cites this year but the confirmation of interference by EAC itself is a real shame to the security of the department. The rising trend of hacking is making the authorities concern about the issue more than ever. EAC was hacked by the hacker referred to as Rasputin. This is obviously not the real name but it indicates the person who tried to sell over 100 logins to its systems. And upon investigation, these logins were found to have a complete administrative freedom. Most of these hackers had clear access to confidential testing plans along with the results of voting hardware across US.
Rasputin was also found to be selling an open SQL injection vulnerability along with logins for the EAC’s website. The analysts have notified of the issue being fixed for now but it can be exploited anytime in future. The EAC worked with FBI to find the real source behind this attack but still no update has been shared with the public.
As depicted from the name, Rasputin was a Russian language speaker but it cannot be confirmed that he was assisted by the administrative authorities. Actually the news at the time of elections was such that they indicated to the possibility of Russia’s involvement in US voting systems. The EAC’s website itself stated that foreign hackers will not be able to select the next president so people should not believe the fake news. Therefore it is possible that foreign hackers were busy in a criminal activity on the website even at that time.
Via: Tech Crunch
