10/12/2017

How DEFCON Turned an Event into a Major Initiative

The DEFCON hacking conference is getting into the election security business

Organizers of the long-running DEFCON hacking conference have teamed with a variety of groups, including the National Governors Association (NGA), on an initiative to boost electoral security. The new coalition comes on the heels of a new report highlighting how insecure many voting machines really are.

The DEFCON hacking conference, which has existed in one form or another for nearly a quarter century, is getting into the election security business—with the help of a number of associations and nonprofits.

A September report [PDF] outlines the results of the first-ever “Voting Machine Hacking Village,” held at the DEFCON conference in Las Vegas last summer. The exercise revealed significant vulnerabilities in digital voting machines and in the ways they’re used to tally votes. And this week it led to the announcement of a coalition on election security that includes the NGA, the Atlantic Council, the Center for Internet Security and a variety of academic groups, among others.

Please click here to read the complete article from Associations Now.