The Washington, D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics last week opened a new Internet-based voting system in an open test for vulnerabilities ahead of live elections scheduled for next month. Within 36 hours, scientists from the University of Michigan who were tasked with testing the system, managed to hijack it. If left alone, the exploited vulnerabilities would have allowed hackers to rig elections and view secret voting data.

For now, the pilot system has been reinstated after being pulled last Friday, though residents can only use it to download and print ballots--which have to be returned by postal mail. While the security hole has since been closed, plans for Internet voting have been temporarily suspended pending more robust testing.

Can Internet voting ever be secure? Prof J. Alex Halderman's, who led the team that found the exploit, wrote in his blog: "It may someday be possible to build a secure method for submitting ballots over the Internet, but in the meantime, such systems should be presumed to be vulnerable based on the limitations of today's security technology."

For more on this story:
- check out this article at The Register
- check out this article at The Washington Post

Related Articles:
Crackdown on Zeus banking scam unearths massive cybercrime outfit
Use passwords of at least 12 characters to protect against hacking
Wireless tire sensors on vehicles vulnerable to hacking
Many home routers could be vulnerable to web hack