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TECHNOLOGY Friday 16 June 2017
Researcher finds Georgia voter records exposed on internet

By FRANK BAJAK contracts with Kennesaw
Associated Press State to manage the tech-
HOUSTON (AP) — A secu- nology part. The Associat-
rity researcher disclosed a ed Press sought comment
gaping security hole at the by phone and email from
outfit that manages Geor- King and Secretary of State
gia’s election technology, Brian Kemp, but there was
days before the state holds no immediate response.
a closely watched con- Lamb said he decided not
gressional runoff vote on to disclose the problem at
June 20. the time — mostly because
The security failure left the he “didn’t want to need-
state’s 6.7 million voter lessly escalate things” prior
records and other sensi- to the Nov. 8 general elec-
tive files exposed to hack- tion. He said King had also
ers, and may have been told him that “messing with
left unpatched for seven elections means the peo-
months. The revealed files ple downtown crush you.”
might have allowed at- This Sept. 22, 2016 file photo shows employees of the Fulton County Election Preparation Center in In March, a security col-
tackers to plant malware Atlanta test electronic voting machines. league Lamb had told
and possibly rig votes or Associated Press about the flaw checked
wreak chaos with voter covery last August. He told ter had not been serious based foundation partici- out the center’s website
rolls during elections. The Associated Press he de- enough about security, to pated in a failed lawsuit and discovered that the
Georgia is especially vul- cided to go public after the come forward with his find- that sought to bar the use vulnerabilities had only
nerable to such disruption, publication last week of a ings. of paperless voting ma- been partially fixed.
as the entire state relies on classified National Security Lamb discovered the secu- chines in next week’s elec- “We were both pretty
antiquated touchscreen Agency report describing a rity hole — a misconfigured tion.The directory of files floored,” said Lamb.
voting machines that pro- sophisticated scheme, al- server — one day as he did “was already indexed by The researcher, Chris Gray-
vide no hardcopy record legedly by Russian military a search of the Kennesaw Google,” Lamb said in an son, said he, too, was able
of votes, making it all but intelligence, to infiltrate lo- State election-systems interview — meaning that to access the same voter
impossible to tell if anyone cal U.S. elections systems website. There, he found a anyone could have found record database and
has manipulated the tal- using phishing emails. directory open to the inter- it with the right search. other sensitive files in a
lies.The true dimensions of The NSA report offered the net that contained not just “I don’t know if the vote publicly accessible direc-
the failure were first report- most detailed account the state voter database, could have been rigged, tory. Grayson contacted a
ed Wednesday by Politico yet of an attempt by for- but PDF files with instruc- but compromising that friend who is a professor at
Magazine . The affected eign agents to probe the tions and passwords used server would have served Kennesaw State. Two days
Center for Election Sys- rickety and poorly funded by poll workers to sign into as a great pivot point and later, the FBI was called in
tems referred all questions U.S. elections system. The a central server used on malware could have been to investigate.
to its host, Kennesaw State Department of Homeland Election Day. Lamb said he planted easily,” he added. It did not bring charges
University, which declined Security had previously re- downloaded 15 gigabytes Lamb said he notified the against either researcher,
comment. In March, the ported attempts last year of data, which he later de- center’s director, Merle finding no evidence of il-
university had mischarac- to gain unauthorized ac- stroyed. King, who assured him the legal entry . “At the end
terized the flaw’s discovery cess to voter registration “It was an open invitation hole would be patched of the day we were do-
as a security breach. databases in 20 states — to anybody pretending to and who asked to keep his ing what we thought was
Logan Lamb, a 29-year-old one of which, in Illinois, suc- even know a little bit about discovery to himself. in the best interest of the
Atlanta-based private se- ceeded, though the state computers to get into the Politico said the center republic — informing the
curity researcher formerly said no harm resulted. system,” said Marilyn Marks, never notified the secre- parties that needed to be
with Oak Ridge National It also emboldened Lamb, an election-transparency tary of state’s office, which privy to this sort of issue,”
Laboratory, made the dis- who felt the election cen- activist whose Colorado- oversees elections and said Grayson. q
Facebook deploys AI to fight

terrorism on its network

By BARBARA ORTUTAY from Facebook and other Minister Theresa May called
AP Technology Writer services such as YouTube, on governments to form
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — but Facebook had been international agreements
Facebook has started de- reluctant about applying to prevent the spread of
ploying its artificial intelli- it to other potentially less extremism online. Some
gence capabilities to help clear-cut uses. proposed measures would
combat terrorists’ use of its In most cases, Facebook hold companies legally ac-
service. only removes objection- countable for the material
Company officials said in able material if users first posted on their sites.
a blog post Thursday that report it. The Facebook post — by In this May 16, 2012, file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed
Facebook will use AI in Facebook and other inter- Monika Bickert, director on an iPad in Philadelphia.
conjunction with human net companies face grow- of global policy manage- Associated Press
reviewers to find and re- ing government pressure ment, and Brian Fishman,
move “terrorist content” to identify and prevent the counterterrorism policy ror attacks, people have head on. We agree with
immediately, before other spread of terrorist propa- manager — did not specifi- questioned the role of tech those who say that social
users see it. Such tech- ganda and recruiting mes- cally mention May’s calls. companies in fighting ter- media should not be a
nology is already used to sages on their services. Ear- But it acknowledged that rorism online.”“We want place where terrorists have
block child pornography lier this month, British Prime “in the wake of recent ter- to answer those questions a voice,” they wrote.q