THE HAGUE — Better safe than sorry.
That's the Dutch government’s approach to dealing with the fear of Russian election hacking. The tech-savvy country scaled back the use of computers to count votes and opt for an all-paper, all-manual election this month. It is one of the more drastic responses to a threat that France and Germany, which also hold elections this year, have also started to grapple with.
The Dutch government has known about some of the vulnerabilities in the voting software since 2006 and banned electronic voting in 2007, but has been publicly — and frequently — reminded ever since by academics and hackers of vulnerabilities in the software used to count the votes. A decade later, the country hasn’t come up with a secure tech system to cast and count votes.
It was only after the U.S. blamed Russia for hacking during the presidential election cycle last year that the Netherlands announced it was dropping computers entirely. The country’s almost 13 million voters will line up March 15 at more than 9,000 polling stations to tick the box for their candidate with pencils, and these votes will be counted by hand. It’s unclear how long it will take officials to get it done.
The French and the Germans, which also have national elections in the coming months are also worried and trying to beef up cyber walls.
Dutch officials say the threat extends beyond voting: Politicians’ computers could be hacked and fake news could infiltrate media and blogs, they say.
In early February, Rob Bertholee, head of Dutch intelligence agency AIVD, said his services had identified hundreds of attacks by Russia targeting government systems that were intended to steal confidential documents.
“We’re talking about reports at the heart of government,” he said, adding that “it is a race to stay on top of things.”
This is a great read. http://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-election-news-russian-hackers-netherlands/
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