Chicago elections board not ready for hackers or natural disaster, City Hall watchdog finds

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-chicago-vulnerable-elections-hackers-20190129-story.html

By Todd Lighty
Chicago Tribune
January 29, 2019

The Chicago elections board can't guarantee the integrity of voting 
results in the event of a natural disaster or cyber attack, the city's 
watchdog warned Tuesday in a highly critical report of the agency's 
operations.

The wide-ranging audit by Inspector General Joseph Ferguson also concluded 
that the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners does not post many job 
openings and has not conducted employee performance reviews in a at least 
10 years. Ferguson said the board was warned a decade ago about many of 
the financial problems he's uncovered and failed to correct them.

It's the technological vulnerabilities, however, that the inspector 
general's office found that could attract the most public attention. 
Governments have become increasingly concerned about computer hacks and 
the possibility of meddling in elections.

In the 2016 presidential race, Russians hacked into the Illinois State 
Board of Elections voter registration database, and compromised the names, 
addresses, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers of about 76,000 
voters, federal authorities and election officials have said.

In Chicago, Ferguson found that the elections board does not have an 
emergency plan in place, has not inventoried its computer hardware and 
software, and has not conducted any audits or risk assessments during the 
past dozen years, leaving the outcome of city elections vulnerable to a 
computer hack or other catastrophe. He said the lack of a list of computer 
items could impede the election board’s ability to recover from 
disruptions.

[...]

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