Poll: UK General Election Could Be Hacked

By   ISBuzz Team
Writer , Information Security Buzz | Jun 01, 2017 05:56 pm PST

With a week to go until the UK general election, Tripwire, a leading global provider of security and compliance solutions for enterprises and industrial organizations, conducted a poll asking whether they think hackers could interfere in the UK general election process.

The overwhelming majority of respondents agreed that hackers could interfere in the UK general election, with 80% of respondents answering ‘Yes’ or ‘pretty likely’. Only 17% answered that they ‘highly doubt it’ and only 3% answered ‘No way’. Tim Erlin, VP at Tripwire commented below.

Tim Erlin, VP at Tripwire:

 “With the ongoing investigations into the US election, it seems only logical that people will start to wonder how hackers will affect the UK elections. With only 20% of respondents in the negative category, it seems clear that people are anticipating that hackers will influence the upcoming elections in one way or another.

“Voting in the election is more of a physical process. When talking about hacking in context of the general election, it would primarily take place by targeting external factors that affect people’s choices or their ability to physically go out and vote on the day.

“One obvious form of this is social engineering. If hackers are able to push fake news via phishing campaigns or on social media, then this can have a big impact on the outcome of an election. If hackers really wanted to mess with the democratic process on Thursday 8th June then another obvious target would be to target national infrastructure systems. With the recent Wannacry outbreak, we have seen the chaos that this can cause and it could cause problems way beyond the general election.

“Other types of hacking that could interfere with the election could focus on targeting external platforms that aid voting, including carpooling apps and websites that help you identify your nearest polling station.

“People and organizations alike look to the government to set an example and lead the way on all sorts of issues, including cyber security. What the results of this poll show is that seasoned cyber security professionals and voters are not confident that the UK government’s current election process is protected from hackers. It will be up to whoever is voted in to reassure the public that there was no interference in the election and that their vote was safe.”

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