Testing Defences Is Getting My Vote
This weekend sees the annual convention of hackers in Las Vegas, a gathering of the finest experts at cracking open software code and taking control of our gizmos.
You would think that advertising such a conference would be akin to sending the old bill a flyer for a bank robbing seminar.
Actually, though, Def Con 2018 is more of a security conference, aimed at sharing expertise on keeping those with malevolent intentions out of our systems.
Nevertheless, one does wonder whether some of the bad lads will have had their spies don some false beards and sneak in to learn a few of the latest tricks. Def Con is a military term, short for defence Condition Ready and the central theme of this year’s conference is that systems supporting the processes of democratic elections are far from defence ready.
So much so, we are led to presume, that eight-year-olds can break into them.
Why else would the organisers have taken replicas of the websites used by states in the US to manage and announce election results and launched a competition for 8 to 16-year-olds to break into the, publish fake results and then suggest some security improvements?
The organisers say that they originally intended it as an adult competition but the sites were so leaky that no self-respecting experienced hacker could be bothered with so weak a challenge.
So the grown-ups will be tackling American election booth voting machines instead.
With tales of external interference questioning the validity of most recent elections in the western world a review of the strength of defences appears overdue.
It certainly gets my vote!
