“YOUR MORNING,” CTV: Hacking the U.S. election is a real concern

Daniel Tobok
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Posted on: September 17, 2016

CEO of Cypfer Daniel Tobok was interviewed by Ben Mulroney, host of CTV’s “Your Morning”on Thursday, September 15, 2016, about two separate hacking incidents in Arizona and Illinios, running up the the U.S. election on November 8, 2016. Cyber security expert and CEO of Cypfer Daniel Tobok was interviewed by Ben Mulroney, host of CTV’s “Your Morning” on Thursday, September 15, 2016, on the topic of: Can the U.S. election be hacked? Voter registration systems in Arizona and Illinois have been hacked this year. The incident in Arizona has been attributed to a well-known Russian hacker. “The speculation ranges from cyber hackers making the U.S. look bad to actually manipulating the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” said Tobok. “Which candidate won which state is a serious issue.”One of the problems in the U.S. is that the electoral voting system is different from state to state.

While American voters cannot yet vote online, what should not be overlooked is the fact that the voting results must be transferred from individual states to the “big server.” That data travels on the internet. And the internet gets hacked all the time.”What everyone is extremely concerned about is manipulation of election data that affects the outcome of the election,” said Tobok. “We have not seen it yet, but there has been speculation that some data has been breached. There has been no confirmation of this.” “There is an entire generation that is used to sharing their personal information,” said Mulroney. “If it gets them free WI-FI, they have no problem sharing it. Why should sharing data matter to people?”

“Voter information is linked to your social insurance number, your birth certificate information, and so on. So the information in the voter database is more sensitive and sharing this information is more than people are comfortable with,” said Tobok.The Americans are getting ready for this by sending out special technology kits to all the voting stations, telling election overseers how to do software patches properly. “Are they prepared? We will see in November 2016,” said Tobok.How are we doing in Canada? “Elections Canada is in the forefront,” said Tobok. “Are we close to having e-voting in Canada?” said Mulroney.”Not yet, but we will one day,” said Tobok.