A former head of MI6 has warned against switching elections to electronic voting because of the risk of hacking and cyber attacks. Sir John Sawers said the traditional method of pencil and paper voting in polling booths was more secure than electronic alternatives. The retired spy chief spoke after his successor recently warned that cyber attacks and attempts to subvert democracy by states like Russia pose a fundamental threat to British sovereignty. Fears of high tech meddling in polls have been heightened by American accusations that Kremlin-backed cyber gangs hacked US political organisations and leaked sensitive emails to deliberately undermine the presidential elections. All parliamentary and council elections in the UK are currently carried out with ballot papers, but a commission set up by the speaker, John Bercow, in 2015 called for secure online voting to be available by 2020.
Sir John, who led the Secret Intelligence Service from 2009 to 2014, said voting systems had to be robust. He told the BBC: “Bizarrely, the stubby pencil and piece of paper that you put your cross on in the ballot box is actually much more secure than anything which is electronic. “The only trouble is that the younger generation of people expect to do things remotely and through electronic devices.
“The more things you do online, the more susceptible you are for cyber attacks so there is some merit in putting your cross in a box with a pencil rather than doing anything electronic.”
Full Article: Former MI6 chief warns over hacking risk to electronic voting in UK elections.