Security Expert Jailed For Reporting Vulnerabilities In Lee County, FL Elections (theregister.co.uk)

rootmon writes: Information Security Professional David Levin was arrested 3 months after reporting un-patched SQL injection vulnerabilities in the Lee County, Florida Elections Office run by Sharon Harrington, the Lee County Supervisor of Elections. Harrington's office has been in the news before for voting systems problems (for example in during the 2012 election, 35 districts in Lee County had to remain open 3 hours past the closing of polls due to long lines and equipment issues, wasting $800,000 to $1.6 million of taxpayer money on incompatible iPads for which her office is facing an audit. Rather than fixing the issues in their systems, they chose to charge the whistleblower with three third-degree felonies. The News Press also has several related interviews.

Comments

White Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope the courts recognize that white hats are the good guys. I hope that paves the way for Levin (and EFF) to sue Lee County and Harrington for damages. And I hope that discourages other politicians from lashing out at the good guys.

Re:White Hat

[Martin Blank]

Breaking into or executing code on a system without permission is a criminal offense. Even if he was doing it ostensibly for the greater good, Levin should know better (and a tweet from him suggests that he knows he should have known better). The courts aren't going to let this slide just because he's a "good guy," because that sets a bad precedent.

If you're going to try to break into a system, get permission. If you absolutely must do it without permission, use a burner name and address to make the notification, or go through an attorney to make the notification.

Re:White Hat

[MightyMartian]

Or, in the future, sell it to the Russian mob for big bucks and retire.

Re:White Hat

[StatureOfLiberty]

I hope the court realizes that the State officials are incompetent retards who created a serious security situation.

Of course they may have just purchased or licensed a serious security situation. There are a lot of poorly written applications created by the private sector and sold to the public sector.

There should be no excuse for a State though. They should have the resources to check out software and services they purchase (especially elections related software or services). When it comes to the County and City level though, many don't have the resources to do this kind of evaluation whether it is available skill sets or money to pay an expert. This is a significant problem that really needs addressing in many localities.

Florida really should drop this one. All they are doing is making themselves look worse (hey!, why just look stupid when you can also look corrupt).

Re:White Hat

[dgatwood]

Ha, ha. You still think those vulnerabilities were accidents.

IMO, it seems far more likely that the SQL injection holes were deliberate. After all, parameterized SQL queries have been the norm for at least eight or ten years, which means that for this to be accidental, either the software would have to be as old as Windows Vista or the developers would have to be so grossly incompetent that they would never be able to hold down a job writing database software for more than a week or two.

The whole "never attribute to malice" thing applies only when it can be plausibly attributed to incompetence. SQL injections in an election system in 2016 fall so far on the other side of that line that you can't even see the line from there.

With that said, in the unlikely event that I'm wrong, and that it really was caused by a grossly incompetent vendor, I expect to see that vendor added to a government blacklist and become immediately ineligible for any government contracts going forward. I also expect to see the software in question thrown away and paper ballots used until such time as a suitable replacement can be found. There's no excuse for allowing software that doesn't even meet 2010-era standards to be used for running elections in 2016. None whatsoever.

Re:White Hat

[ArhcAngel]

When exposing the vulnerability you simply run it through the legally ambiguous filter.

I was able to penetrate your system using an injection attack vector

becomes

Based on your code I surmised it was likely susceptible to an injection attack vector and wanted to make you aware of it before someone actually tries it.

Re:White Hat

[amiga3D]

There will be no permission. The real reason he's in jail is they're pissed off everyone knows how fucked up their system is. He outed them and they popped his ass in the slammer for it. If they were actually interested in providing a secure system they would have rewarded him instead. The way he was treated says everything about Sharon Harrington's professionalism. She's a typical CYA type interested only in her own continuance of incompetence at her job. I'd say the people in that county should see that she's sacked if they ever want an improvement. Wonder how many of those Ipads walked off on her watch? Maybe they could find a cell for her too.

Re:White Hat

[Kernel Kurtz]

Or, in the future, sell it to the Russian mob for big bucks and retire.

Should be marked insightful, not funny.

If government is going to be douchey towards people who point out vulnerabilities, then best not to disclose anything to government. They completely deserve whatever comes next.

Let them fail all by themselves.

Re:White Hat

[raymorris]

Imagine if someone found the key to a government building under the door mat. That's clearly a major security lapse.

Imagine if they next USED that key to enter the building on a weekend and rummaged through the offices inside. That's second-degree burglary.

This guy found a way to retrieve the admin password (key), and should have stopped there. Instead, he USED the admin password to log in and rummage around. I've been doing network security for twenty years. I've never seen any reason to do that.

Re:White Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no MUST - prosecutors have discretion. Judges have discretion, and Juries (though they don;t want you to know it!) have discretion.

Re: White Hat

[jxander]

You are absolutely correct: the way he handled this is a crime. But that just highlights a massive deficiency. How are we supposed to catch security flaws like this?

I can't imagine that asking permission would end well. The target has nothing to gain, and everything to lose. We need someone (or some group) sanctioned to pen test government assets.

From election offices, to the ACA databases, to the DMV, and on and on, we have a LOT of personal data floating around. I would certainly prefer that someone is allowed to make sure these repositories are being kept up to standards.

Re:White Hat

[Hulfs]

In this case, the saying definitely applies...there are a LOT of people who have no business creating code for important production systems doing so.

As scary as it is, there's a non-insignificant portion of workers actively creating software, often connected directly to the web, who have no idea what a SQL Injection is, nor why you need to worry about one.

Asking about what a SQL Injection is is one of my standard interview questions, you'd be shocked at the number of people who don't have a clue, even those who are interviewing for a senior position. Not really related, but I'm also shocked by the number of people who don't understand what an Outer Join is.

Re:White Hat

[Chas]

The thing is, if a security researcher asked for a unit to do security testing on, no permission would be forthcoming.

The security researcher, being a voter, has a legitimate interest in the safety and security of the voting system.
Also, as a voter, this person is ALREADY supposed to be able to access the system. It's the fault of the people setting up this system that his ability to access the system is that broad.
And, since the equipment is being purchased with taxpayer funds, there's a legitimate school of thought that permission for access is already implicit.

Criminals bent on subverting the voting system are NEVER going to ask permission.

Re:White Hat

[AK Marc]

When Putin gets more electoral votes than Trump, you'll see why the Russian mob cares.

No he wasn't

[110010001000]

He was arrested for actually hacking the website. Stop it with the clickbait headlines. This isn't the Star.

Re:No he wasn't

[hesiod]

He was "hacking" it on a video demonstrating it directly to THE ELECTIONS SUPERVISOR, who agree he should not have been arrested.

Re:No he wasn't

[Luthair]

For a running service 'testing' hacks is still hacking.

Re:No he wasn't

[110010001000]

No he wasn't. He "hacked" it previously before the demonstration. Stop lying. I agree he shouldn't have been arrested but there is no reason to lie for clicks.

Re:No he wasn't

[iCEBaLM]

So what you're saying is that nobody should ever try to discover vulnerabilities and report them?

What I'm getting at here is yes, in this instance, he went a little too far by using the credentials he found after the injection was done to login to other parts of their system, but if he had stopped after the initial injection worked, and then disclosed that vulnerability to the owners, is that technically still hacking? And if so, doesn't that create a rather terrible precedent?

Re:FLORIDA

[__aaclcg7560]

According to an episode of The X-Files, "all the nuts roll downhill" state.

Government willfully ignorant of their own laws

[randomErr]

I wish best for this guy. He did what was right and now faces several felonies. I hope this gets thrown out and he can files a big fat civil lawsuit at the count. He has his felony charges published all over the news and in postings. He'll never be able to get top secret clearance. Any potential employer will Google this guy and may consider him to be too hot to handle.

Re:FLORIDA

[The-Ixian]

Replying because I mis-click moderated you.

Was going for +1 Funny and clicked -1 Troll instead.

Re:Lesson be learned

[HornWumpus]

Next time make the reported results so preposterous it's obvious that shenanigans are involved.

Make 'Vermin Supreme' get 110% of the votes. Give the mainstream candidates large enough negative vote counts to give the national popular vote to 'Vermin Supreme'.

Until someone does this, to a system directly feeding data to the news networks, the system will continue to be reported as 'secure and working as designed'.

It shouldn't matter

[SeattleLawGuy]

How do you find a vulnerability without actually testing it?

It almost shouldn't matter in this case. It does, but it shouldn't. When you bring felony charges for basic pen testing, people who find a system is vulnerable are not going to report it. Even if they shouldn't have been snooping around in the first place, isn't it better if they're willing to report the vulnerability before someone does real damage?

Basic SQL injection vulnerabilities are so trivial to guard against these days that it is the person who spec'd or coded the system who should be facing severe punishment, not the person who ran a penetration test. It is very much like leaving a ballot box unguarded and unlocked at a polling place, and then arresting the person who lifts up the lid and says "hey, someone left this unlocked!" Sure, he shouldn't have been checking, but he's not the one who dropped the ball and you don't arrest him for it.

In a worse case, this could have been done easily by a random tech guy barely out of high school, a malicious government, a ransomware operator, or anyone who wanted to steal the election. Many people love this kind of soft target. The local government should be thanking their lucky stars it was done by someone who reported it instead of using it to elect the candidate slate of their choice.

Re:It shouldn't matter

[iCEBaLM]

It is very much like leaving a ballot box unguarded and unlocked at a polling place, and then arresting the person who lifts up the lid and says "hey, someone left this unlocked!" Sure, he shouldn't have been checking, but he's not the one who dropped the ball and you don't arrest him for it.

I agree, somewhat. The analogy breaks down slightly because in the "physical world" you can sense that something may be open, such as a door, by looking at it and not necessarily walking through. Then the question is, is it illegal to try to open a locked door? Is it illegal to try to open a door that isn't yours but is easily accessible? (no barriers, no signage, etc)

However when it comes to networks, the only way to "see" a vulnerability is to actually use it and test if it works. Is that hacking? Should it be illegal?

Wrong way to go about it

[SuperKendall]

The correct approach for fixing security issues in a voting system are to elect yourself, then appoint a team of people to correct the issue while funneling you money.

Next time, sue the state

[TranceThrust]

Security professionals and tech enthusiasts should take note of this technique and apply it in reverse: instead of reporting vulnerabilities to the government institutes who caused them, bring those guys to court. Sue them for unsafely handling the information you entrust them with. Things are not going to get better unless this kind of incompetence can cost someone's head.

Re:FLORIDA

[Locke2005]

I'll go with the Simpsons: "Florida, America's wang."

Re:FLORIDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly I'm disgusted that there's no "+1 Funny Troll" option.