5 ms·

Romania cancels election after systems targeted in cyberattacks

83 points by stefanv 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Actual article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-election-systems-targeted-in-over-85-000-cyberattacks/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-elec... Related: Romanian court annuls result of presidential election first round https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42334325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42334325
- stefanv 2y ago
  The underlaying news is the same, but my link focuses more on the technical reason (IT system breach), while the link you posted emphasizes the political reasons
  - postepowanieadm 2y ago
    Ok, but if IT systems were breached then a simple recount should do.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      Do they vote on paper ballots or on a machine, that then logs the vote somewhere? If they have paper ballots a recount can be trusted. If they vote on a machine they would be trusting the machine that they say was targeted by those attacks. In general my opinion has always been that voting on a machine is a bad idea.
      - ropejumper 2y ago
        Paper ballots, and a recount was already issued. There were differences between the two counts but they were minor enough; the recount was actually done because some other guy didn't like the fact that 2nd and 3rd place were only 2000 votes apart. The breaches apparently didn't do much, the big reason why they cancelled the election was because the leading candidate declared 0 spending for his campaign, but it was proven he used russian money to fund countless tiktok videos that got him popular overnight. This is illegal under romanian law. Personally, I don't think they should've been cancelled. It's a dubious thing to do under a democracy, and the runner-up was pretty decent anyway and had a chance for the second tour. I guess we'll see how it goes.
        tremon 2y ago
        If people can only cast one vote, and you take the candidate with the most votes out of circulation (for whatever reason, campaign fraud in this case it seems), then you are discarding the votes of a large contingent of voters. Doing this and letting the results stand is wrong for the same reason why simply distributing the votes pro-rata among the other candidates is wrong: it is more likely that the candidate pulled votes from closely-aligned candidates than candidates on opposing ends of the political spectrum, so you get a skewed representation of the voting distribution. Whichever method you choose to redistribute (or ignore) the votes cast for that one candidate doesn't matter: you will always end up in election-doctoring territory, even if you do everything by the book and in the open. Other systems, like ranked-choice voting, might not need a do-over because relative preferences are already expressed on the ballot. But in this case, canceling the entire vote and re-doing it is the only sensible solution.
        ropejumper 2y ago
        You have a point. It's a complicated issue for sure, I definitely don't want to be the one tasked with making a decision (and being judged for it!)
  - ChrisArchitect 2y ago
    Fine, updated, Actual article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-election-systems-targeted-in-over-85-000-cyberattacks/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-elec...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
trlpanv 2y ago
Gosh, how about reverting to pen and paper? This is a solved problem, people have been saying this since the first introduction of voting machines. I think there is even an XKCD about this.
- ropejumper 2y ago
  No voting machines were used. It was paper ballots with stamps.
cool_dude85 2y ago
Is there any English reporting of the concrete nature of these cyberattacks? The report linked in the article is obviously in Romanian, but I am very curious if the report has specific allegations about e.g. phony votes, hacked results, etc. or if it comes down to "there was a facebook group that reposted the guy's tiktoks"?
- talldayo 2y ago
  This is a little bit of background: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romanian-elections-using-10-million-fake-tiktok-accounts/ https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romania...
  - cool_dude85 2y ago
    This is weak stuff - the allegation here seems to be that Georgescu bought fake followers on tiktok.
    - lostmsu 2y ago
      Well, you can't do that and not declare it.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      If this was done in concert with CCP officials (as alleged), it would be sufficient grounds to ban TikTok from business operations in most democratic nations.
- stefanv 2y ago
  I could not find any official English translation of the report, but Romanian can be easily translated with online tools. This link (found in the article) seems to have more technical details https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-election-systems-targeted-in-over-85-000-cyberattacks/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-elec... “The Romanian intelligence agency says that the 85,000 attacks continued until November 25th, the night after the first presidential election round, and the goals ranged from gaining access to the election infrastructure and compromising it to altering election information for the public and denying access to the systems. SRI notes in the declassified report that the threat actor tried to breach the systems by exploiting SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities from devices in more than 33 countries. The agency is also warning that Romania's election infrastructure is still affected by vulnerabilities that could be exploited to move laterally on the network and establish persistence.”
redleader55 2y ago
This is a very bad article as the cyberattacks did nothing and didn't interfere with the election. The relevant part here is how TikTok was used to push an unknown character from a nobody to getting 22% of the votes in the first round, all while no one was aware of this. The polls didn't show him among the favorites. More than that the campaign was so we'll targeted that only people likely to vote for him saw the TikTok content making everyone else completely unaware of his presence.
- cryptoegorophy 2y ago
  How is this a cyberattack? If it doesn’t fit the narrative then it is a cyber attack?
  - cbg0 2y ago
    There were DDoS attacks targeting some state systems connected to the electoral process, that is factually correct, but it's not why the election was cancelled, that's because a candidate broke electoral law.
    - NVHacker 2y ago
      Link to where any judge said that ?
  - willvarfar 2y ago
    It is a cyber attack if the popularity is not organic, but rather manipulated by state actors?
    - pphysch 2y ago
      So AIPAC is a cyberattack? Not trying to start a tangent, just trying to understand your argument.
      - hn_go_brrrrr 2y ago
        Is AIPAC a foreign agent (are they required to register with the US government as such)?
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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dang 2y ago
I've merged most of the comments into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819, which is currently on the front page (but left the ones that only make sense in this context). For the current post, we changed the URL above from https://www.techradar.com/pro/romania-cancels-election-after-systems-targeted-in-cyberattacks-over-85-000-times https://www.techradar.com/pro/romania-cancels-election-after... to the article it points to. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

83 points by stefanv 2y ago

Actual article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-election-systems-targeted-in-over-85-000-cyberattacks/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-elec... Related: Romanian court annuls result of presidential election first round https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42334325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42334325

stefanv 2y ago
The underlaying news is the same, but my link focuses more on the technical reason (IT system breach), while the link you posted emphasizes the political reasons
- postepowanieadm 2y ago
  Ok, but if IT systems were breached then a simple recount should do.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    Do they vote on paper ballots or on a machine, that then logs the vote somewhere? If they have paper ballots a recount can be trusted. If they vote on a machine they would be trusting the machine that they say was targeted by those attacks. In general my opinion has always been that voting on a machine is a bad idea.
    - ropejumper 2y ago
      Paper ballots, and a recount was already issued. There were differences between the two counts but they were minor enough; the recount was actually done because some other guy didn't like the fact that 2nd and 3rd place were only 2000 votes apart. The breaches apparently didn't do much, the big reason why they cancelled the election was because the leading candidate declared 0 spending for his campaign, but it was proven he used russian money to fund countless tiktok videos that got him popular overnight. This is illegal under romanian law. Personally, I don't think they should've been cancelled. It's a dubious thing to do under a democracy, and the runner-up was pretty decent anyway and had a chance for the second tour. I guess we'll see how it goes.
      - tremon 2y ago
        If people can only cast one vote, and you take the candidate with the most votes out of circulation (for whatever reason, campaign fraud in this case it seems), then you are discarding the votes of a large contingent of voters. Doing this and letting the results stand is wrong for the same reason why simply distributing the votes pro-rata among the other candidates is wrong: it is more likely that the candidate pulled votes from closely-aligned candidates than candidates on opposing ends of the political spectrum, so you get a skewed representation of the voting distribution. Whichever method you choose to redistribute (or ignore) the votes cast for that one candidate doesn't matter: you will always end up in election-doctoring territory, even if you do everything by the book and in the open. Other systems, like ranked-choice voting, might not need a do-over because relative preferences are already expressed on the ballot. But in this case, canceling the entire vote and re-doing it is the only sensible solution.
        ropejumper 2y ago
        You have a point. It's a complicated issue for sure, I definitely don't want to be the one tasked with making a decision (and being judged for it!)
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  Fine, updated, Actual article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-election-systems-targeted-in-over-85-000-cyberattacks/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-elec...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

trlpanv 2y ago

Gosh, how about reverting to pen and paper? This is a solved problem, people have been saying this since the first introduction of voting machines. I think there is even an XKCD about this.

ropejumper 2y ago
No voting machines were used. It was paper ballots with stamps.

cool_dude85 2y ago

Is there any English reporting of the concrete nature of these cyberattacks? The report linked in the article is obviously in Romanian, but I am very curious if the report has specific allegations about e.g. phony votes, hacked results, etc. or if it comes down to "there was a facebook group that reposted the guy's tiktoks"?

talldayo 2y ago
This is a little bit of background: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romanian-elections-using-10-million-fake-tiktok-accounts/ https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romania...
- cool_dude85 2y ago
  This is weak stuff - the allegation here seems to be that Georgescu bought fake followers on tiktok.
  - lostmsu 2y ago
    Well, you can't do that and not declare it.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    If this was done in concert with CCP officials (as alleged), it would be sufficient grounds to ban TikTok from business operations in most democratic nations.
stefanv 2y ago
I could not find any official English translation of the report, but Romanian can be easily translated with online tools. This link (found in the article) seems to have more technical details https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-election-systems-targeted-in-over-85-000-cyberattacks/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/romanias-elec... “The Romanian intelligence agency says that the 85,000 attacks continued until November 25th, the night after the first presidential election round, and the goals ranged from gaining access to the election infrastructure and compromising it to altering election information for the public and denying access to the systems. SRI notes in the declassified report that the threat actor tried to breach the systems by exploiting SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities from devices in more than 33 countries. The agency is also warning that Romania's election infrastructure is still affected by vulnerabilities that could be exploited to move laterally on the network and establish persistence.”

redleader55 2y ago

This is a very bad article as the cyberattacks did nothing and didn't interfere with the election. The relevant part here is how TikTok was used to push an unknown character from a nobody to getting 22% of the votes in the first round, all while no one was aware of this. The polls didn't show him among the favorites. More than that the campaign was so we'll targeted that only people likely to vote for him saw the TikTok content making everyone else completely unaware of his presence.

cryptoegorophy 2y ago
How is this a cyberattack? If it doesn’t fit the narrative then it is a cyber attack?
- cbg0 2y ago
  There were DDoS attacks targeting some state systems connected to the electoral process, that is factually correct, but it's not why the election was cancelled, that's because a candidate broke electoral law.
  - NVHacker 2y ago
    Link to where any judge said that ?
- willvarfar 2y ago
  It is a cyber attack if the popularity is not organic, but rather manipulated by state actors?
  - pphysch 2y ago
    So AIPAC is a cyberattack? Not trying to start a tangent, just trying to understand your argument.
    - hn_go_brrrrr 2y ago
      Is AIPAC a foreign agent (are they required to register with the US government as such)?

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

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dang 2y ago

I've merged most of the comments into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819, which is currently on the front page (but left the ones that only make sense in this context). For the current post, we changed the URL above from https://www.techradar.com/pro/romania-cancels-election-after-systems-targeted-in-cyberattacks-over-85-000-times https://www.techradar.com/pro/romania-cancels-election-after... to the article it points to. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html