The software that will be used to count votes in the upcoming municipal elections is still not safe. Hackers can use the vulnerable software to influence the election results, experts that examined the software told RTL Nieuws.
Ethical hacker Sijmen Ruwhof discovered more than 50 vulnerabilities in the software. He calls ten of them 'high risk'.
A data leak from Dutch voting guide Stemwijzer, the only one online as yet, revealed which parties are most often recommended to people. After answering 30 questions, most people got the PVV recommended to them, followed by the PvdA. GeenPeil and Forum voor Democratie are at the bottom of the list.
Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk's decision to count the votes in the parliamentary elections by hand is unpractical, according to the Dutch association for local governments NVVB. Counting the ballots by hand is expensive, will take a long time and is unreliable, the NVVB said in a statement.
The votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections in March will all be counted by hand only, to avoid any chance of hackers interfering with the outcome, Minister Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs announced on Wednesday. This follows concerns about the security of software used by the Electoral Council and warnings that the Dutch election may be targeted by foreign parties.
Most of the political parties in the Netherlands do not secure their websites properly, which means that they are vulnerable to hackers, ethical hacker Sijmen Ruwhof said to NRC. "PvdA, PVV, VVD, CDA and D66 for example have not installed certain security updates on their party websites for over a year, which makes them more vulnerable to hackers", Ruwhof said to the newspaper.
The software used at Dutch polling stations to send election results, is outdated and very vulnerable to hackers and there are not enough rules around where and where the software can be installed, according to security expert Sijmen Ruwhof, who investigated the software on behalf of RTL Nieuws. According to Ruwhof, "the average iPad is more secure than the Dutch voting system".
