Critical Security Hole Found in Diebold Machines

ckswift writes "From security expert Bruce Schneier's blog, a major security hole has been found in Diebold voting machines." From the article: "The hole is considered more worrisome than most security problems discovered on modern voting machines, such as weak encryption, easily pickable locks and use of the same, weak password nationwide. Armed with a little basic knowledge of Diebold voting systems and a standard component available at any computer store, someone with a minute or two of access to a Diebold touch screen could load virtually any software into the machine and disable it, redistribute votes or alter its performance in myriad ways."

Comments

Black Box Voting & The Details

[eldavojohn]

BBV released a a nice guide to how all this works. There appears to be a software access button (bottom of page 11):

The TSx also has an unmarked button hidden in the casing. On the circuit board, this switch is labeled "battery test". The switch is physically similar to many reset buttons, necessitating application of substantial force to press the button, requiring it to be depressed by about 1/5 - 1/6 inch in order to activate the switch. This switch is also software accessible. It is completely accessible for all voters in the standard voting booth configuration. The logic behind the button is unknown, but for an attacker it presents yet another way to interact with the machine, and an exceptionally convenient button switch for an attack designed to be triggered by a voter.

Well, this seems very insecure to me. BBV criticizes the three layer architecture and states that it would be very easy to target it three different ways (at each layer):

- The application can be imagined as written instructions on a paper. If it is possible to replace these instructions, as it indeed seems, then the attacker can do whatever he wishes as long as the instructions are used.

- The operating system is the man reading the instructions. If he can be brainwashed according to the wishes of the attacker, then even correct instructions on the paper solve nothing. The man can decide to selectively do something different than the instructions. New paper instructions come and go, and the attacker can decide which instructions to follow because the operating system itself is under his control.

- The boot loader is the supreme entity that creates the man, the world and everything in it. In addition to creating, the boot loader also defines what is allowed in the world and delegates part of that responsibility to the operating system. If the attacker can replace the boot loader, trying to change the paper instructions or the man reading them does not work. The supreme entity will always have the power to replace the man with his own favorite, or perhaps he just modifies the man's eyes and ears: Every time the man sees yellow, the supreme being makes him think he is seeing brown. The supreme entity can give the man two heads and a secret magic word to trigger switching the heads.

In the world of the Diebold touch-screen voting terminals, all of these attacks look possible.

The instructions (applications and files) can be changed. The man reading the files (Windows CE Operating System and the libraries) can be changed. Or the supreme entity (boot loader) can be changed, giving total control over the operating system and the files even if they are "clean software."

Specific conceptual information is contained in the report, with details and filenames in the high-security version which is being delivered under cryptographic and/or personal signature controls to the EAC, Diebold CEO Tom Swidarski and CERT.

1) Boot loader reflashing
2) Operating system reflashing
3) Selective file replacement

In addition, the casing of the TSx machines lack basic seals and security, and within the casing additional exploitations are found.

The article talks about a "standard tool you can buy at any computer store" and I believe this is referring to a PCMCIA card (what you use in laptops). I guess these are used to boot, upgrade & ready the machines for use. They do not go into detail but I wager that using a PCMCIA card with a USB port on it, you could load your own data from a thumb/pen drive. This would be small and easy to carry in. If you had access to it outside of the voting window, you could potentially use a PCMCIA card that functions as a NIC (probably with RJ45 cable port) to use cross over cable and a laptop for a 'live' attack.

The Diebold Chronicles

[Billosaur]

A Finnish computer expert working with Black Box Voting, a nonprofit organization critical of electronic voting, found the security hole in March after Emery County, Utah, was forced by state officials to accept Diebold touch screens, and a local elections official let the expert examine the machines.

Black Box Voting was to issue two reports today on the security hole, one of limited distribution that explains the vulnerability fully and one for public release that withholds key technical details.

The computer expert, Harri Hursti, quietly sent word of the vulnerability in March to several computer scientists who advise various states on voting systems. At least two of those scientists verified some or all of Hursti's findings. Several notified their states and requested meetings with Diebold to understand the problem.

Oh, those plucky Finns and the trouble they cause...

Does anybody get the idea that Diebold simply threw these machines together, cobbled the code together from stuff lying around the shop, slapped some paint on them, and expected states to use them no questions asked? You would think somewhere along the line, someone would have stood up at a development meeting and said, "we'd better make sure these things are secure."

Diebold will of course now hem, haw, blame others, attack the media and anti-electronic voting groups, and reluctantly fix the problem. Just in time for the next one to crop up. Do they have any competition in this market? I don't hear a lot about other companies creating voting machines -- either there aren't any or they do a lot better job.

Re:What I would like to know..!

[TripMaster Monkey]

Why does Diebold design these machines in such a way that they *CAN* be hacked?

Simple. Because that is their intention.

Acccuse me of left-wing moonbattery all you like, but the fact remains that Diebold has shown themselves to be capable of making reasonably secure ATM machines. There's no defense by incompetence available to them. These ridiculous security holes can only be intentional.