So there’s definitely a lot of really cool coverage that he did there, too. And Tom, our editor-in-chief, is just coming off from DEF CON, too. LO: It’s certainly a lot that they pack in. And even though it’s a two-day conference, it just feels like it’s much longer, bigger and crazier than what it looks like on paper. We’re just coming off the heels of Black Hat USA in Las Vegas last week, and it was a whirlwind of a show. Lindsey O’Donnell: This is Lindsey O’Donnell and Tara Seals with Threatpost, on the Threatpost podcast. From the highs to lows, listen to the full recap of the event below – and for direct download of the podcast, click here.īelow is a lightly-edited transcript of the podcast. In addition, Threatpost discusses why Black Hat came under scrutiny for a sponsored “Time AI” encryption session that many researchers criticized as a scam. New IoT flaws discovered – and in the process of being updated – in high-end hotels.Microsoft offering $300,000 for working exploits.An improved public bug bounty program announced by Apple that increases product scope and rewards.The highlights include a widespread trend around increased collaboration between vendors and researchers, pinpointed during the keynote by Square’s Dino Dai Zovi. Threatpost editors Tara Seals and Lindsey O’Donnell get together to discuss the highs and lows from the conference. Stay tuned for another post from Verified Voting that takes a deeper dive into Marian’s talk at DEFCON about the risks of mobile and internet voting.LAS VEGAS – Black Hat and DEF CON 2019 may be wrapping up, but the dual conferences last week in Las Vegas left the security industry with a flurry of new security flaws, topics and announcements to discuss for the weeks to come. The report also noted that while the country’s voting systems remain vulnerable, they “can still be used to conduct high-integrity elections – in spite of their vulnerabilities – by conducting statistically rigorous post-election audits.” The report emphasized the need for implementing voter-marked paper ballots in every state and conducting risk-limiting audits to confirm the results of election outcomes. The Voting Village Report, released on September 27, summarized the findings from the DEFCON conference and reaffirmed the known vulnerabilities that exist in today’s election landscape. Yet despite these known vulnerabilities, internet and mobile phone voting are still being considered by some lawmakers as viable voting options (read more about Verified Voting’s position on internet voting HERE). America’s election infrastructure faces a known set of security vulnerabilities: reports have shown that voter registration databases and state networks were penetrated by a nation state, and critical election management software was unknowingly connected to the internet for months. Marian also reminded the DEFCON audience that multiple agencies have warned that internet voting is not secure, including the Department of Defense, National Institute of Science & Technology, National Academy of Science, and the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Schneider cheekily titled, “If the voting machines are insecure, let’s just vote on our phones!” She outlined the risks of voting by mobile phone and noted that even voting mobile app creators are unable to guarantee that their own technology is unhackable, as demonstrated by the FBI’s investigation into a hack of the Voatz mobile voting app in West Virginia. The conference addressed the risks of mobile and internet-only voting and featured a talk by Verified Voting President Marian K.

Since its launch in 2017, the Voting Village has served as an “open forum to identify vulnerabilities within the US election infrastructure and to consider solutions to mitigate these vulnerabilities.” DEFCON brings security professionals, journalists, lawyers, researchers, and – of course – hackers under one roof at the world’s largest annual hacking convention. Verified Voting staff joined the Voting Village at the 27th annual DEFCON conference in Las Vegas in August.

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