Voter Confidence Will Dwindle if Russian Cyber Threats Continue

Russian hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, according to the FBI. The most recent event is the latest cyber threat involving U.S. elections and party operations.
Vitaly Shmatikov is a computer science professor at Cornell Tech whose research area includes security and privacy. He says the main danger of the election system attacks is the erosion of voters’ confidence in the democratic process.
Bio: http://tech.cornell.edu/people/vitaly-shmatikov
Shmatikov says:
“The main harm of these attacks is not the actual damage they cause, which is very minor. The problem is that they undermine the voters’ confidence in the elections and the democratic process.
“Once it becomes known that election systems can be attacked, people with various agendas have an excuse to claim that the process is rigged or compromised and that the results of the elections need not be respected – even if in reality the attacks did not change anything.”
Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.
- 30 -