“An analysis of Diebold’s source code shows that a hacker with access to a single voting machine could use a virus to affect an election.”

Diebold Election Systems Inc. voting machines are not secure enough to guarantee a trustworthy election, and an attacker with access to a single machine could disrupt or change the outcome of an election using viruses, according to a review of Diebold’s source code.

… “An attack could plausibly be accomplished by a single skilled individual with temporary access to a single voting machine. The damage could be extensive — malicious code could spread to every voting machine in polling places and to county election servers,” it said.

… “A virus could allow an attacker who only had access to a few machines or memory cards, or possibly to only one, to spread malicious software to most, if not all, of a county’s voting machines,” the report said. “Thus, large-scale election fraud in the Diebold system does not necessarily require physical access to a large number of voting machines.”

The report warned that a paper trail of votes cast is not sufficient to guarantee the integrity of an election using the machines. “Malicious code might be able to subtly influence close elections, and it could disrupt elections by causing widespread equipment failure on election day,” it said.

[Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service - August 02, 2007 - Link]

The report: Source Code Review of the Diebold Voting System.

Via Slashdot.

SlashDot comment: “As someone who had been contracted by Diebold, the machines are running Windows, the software is written in Visual Basic, and the database is Access. And no, this isn’t a troll.” Link.