The largest cybersecurity event of the year kicks off this week, as the Black Hat, Def Con and BSides conferences launch back-to-back-to-back in Las Vegas. … In a subversive move, attendees at Def Con will be able to attend its first Voting Machine Village. The Village offers a side conference on voting machine insecurity and a playground of real voting machines for hackers to toy with.
Given that the Def Con villages are traditionally meant to be instructive on how to breach security of an item, not whether or not an item can be breached, the goal appears to be to spread the word that voting machines have a number of known vulnerabilities among a group of influencers in the cybersecurity realm.
Though there is no evidence that machines have ever been breached in the past, and the decentralized nature of elections makes hacking a national election improbable, local elections, including those in 2018, may be easier to target. A number of local and national efforts, both legislative and citizen-driven, have moved for greater voting machine security.
Full Article: Five things to watch for at ‘hacker summer camp’ | TheHill.