US Congressman wants Internet-free voting system

This is the year of major hacks, or at least announcements about major hacks that haven”t been detected until now. Following the massive Yahoo, LinkedIn and Democratic National Convention breaches, no wonder everyone is freaking out about the US election.

Although the June hack is still under investigation, US intelligence strongly believe the Russian government is to blame. Congressman Hank Johnson, a Democrat representing Georgia, came up with two bills to ensure the election will not be influenced by hackers.

Arguing that cyber criminals could at any time compromise the voting system, the Election Integrity Act would safeguard the voting system by blocking voting machines from connecting to the internet.

“We must work to reduce the vulnerability of our crucial voting systems,” Johnson said.

In spite of the small chance of passage in Congress, the bill comes right after a series of critical attacks on the email accounts of high-profile politicians and on two state election systems through which hackers used to delete records.

“Our processes are not in any way foolproof,” he added. “Hundreds of thousands of voter identification information, private voter identification information, sensitive information was released by mistake.”

Governments and educational institutions are preferred targets of criminals, especially when it comes to ransomware. In fact, ransomware attacks on government agencies have tripled, a report found and, if urgent measures are not taken to improve cyber security globally, hackers might just figure out how to influence everything from the stock market to grading systems in schools and political strategies.