“DHS Cyber Office Wants to See Secret Voting Machine Vulnerability Report”

From the Daily Beast. Note that the issue is potential vulnerabilities in voting machines:

A cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security has shown interest in seeing a copy of a report alleging “severe” vulnerabilities in Georgia’s voting machines—a report that a federal judge has decided to keep secret.

As The Daily Beast reported last month, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg ordered the report—authored by a renowned computer security academic—to remain sealed. Although the report only discusses the potential for future election interference, her restrictions appear to be driven by a desire to avoid fueling unfounded right-wing conspiracy theories that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in 2020….

In a statement, CISA’s Hale confirmed to The Daily Beast that his team is prepared to work with Halderman. “CISA works regularly with companies and researchers to coordinate the disclosure of vulnerabilities in a timely and responsible manner so that system owners can take steps to protect their systems,” Hale said “This process includes the participants working to validate any alleged vulnerabilities and reviewing the planned mitigations, remediations or patches.”

But for now, the report is still sealed, preventing the vendor from rectifying any vulnerabilities the researcher has found. In court filings, Halderman says he has reached out on multiple occasions to Dominion to address the flaws to no avail….

Election officials in Ohio and Louisiana, where the machines are slated to be used in the next year, are also interested in learning more about the flaws alleged in the report. Rob Nichols, press secretary for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, told The Daily Beast that his office thinks making this information more readily accessible would be helpful. “We think more information out there is better,” Nichols told The Daily Beast—adding his office is not asking for the report to be unsealed.

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