This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube news/interview segment titled "Arizona Illinois Voters Hacked by Russian Government" (posted 2016-08-30). A host (Speaker A) interviews cyber security expert Robert Siciliano about reported hacks of Arizona and Illinois voter systems allegedly linked to Russia. The discussion covers compromised voter registration/personal data (hundreds of thousands of records), uncertainty about whether vote totals or machines were manipulated, possible Russian motivations, and broader election-security implications.
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We have new details on who was behind a hack on a state election system. This really is and could be an even bigger story. How all of this could impact the election coming up after this. Okay, this is a big story about the hackers targeting election systems in both Arizona and in Illinois, and now we have reports that Russians are behind at least one of these attacks. The cyber expert Robert Siciliano is with us now. How worried How worried should we be? The FBI says Russia certainly was behind Arizona, and, uh, well, I guess we'll see for sure about Illinois, but how worried should we be about this?
Well, I'm certainly worried, uh, when the voting system, when the election system can be compromised in any way, that's definitely cause for concern, 'cause the moment that one candidate wins and the other loses, uh, someone's gonna say foul play, and then we're gonna have to go through all the stats again.
What could happen? Um, say I'm going in to vote here in New York in November, or there are primaries in Arizona and other states even that are happening today. Are we concerned about these hackers going in and, and, and doing what, deleting votes that have already happened or something else?
Well, that certainly is a concern right now. This initial hack, what's being reported is that voter registrations, personal information was compromised. So a couple of hundred thousand people's names, addresses, maybe the district or what their party is, was compromised. To our knowledge, they have not released any more information. Whether or not actual election machines or the votes themselves can be manipulated, we do not know yet.
Okay, um, it was a big story, as I said coming in, this one is now. And one of the reasons, the context going back to when we were covering the conventions and we heard that the Russians somehow might want to influence, according to reports, the election for president in favor of Donald Trump— you remember that story? And there were all kinds of reasons that were out there supposedly that they wanted to do that. What can you tell us, if anything, about motivations or the ability of Russians getting involved, politically getting involved in U.S. elections via this type of technology?
Well, we've known for a long time that Putin and others, they love to have their, you know, hands in everything. They love getting attention, and this is certainly one way to make that happen. Whether or not Russian government or officials were actually involved is another story. You know, certainly hackers enjoy this. This is what they do. This is how they spend their time.
Because it's one thing to take someone's identity, as horrible a crime as that is. It's happened to many people over the years, though. Identity theft is a big problem. But another thing to go in there and actually influence an election, maybe by changing something that occurred or making it harder. Is the capability there in terms of technology to do that?
So in independent studies, researchers have compromised voting machines in a controlled environment. The elections, to our knowledge, at least publicly, have not been hacked or manipulated. Uh, at least as been reported. But that's not to say that it's not possible. There's no such thing as 100% security, and anything is possible in this day and age.
Robert Siciliano, it is scary stuff. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it today.
