Hackers Easily Breach U.S. Voting Machines in Chilling ‘Kill Chain’ Trailer
Rolling Stone
March 5, 2020
by Jon Blistein
The vulnerabilities of the United States’ election system are highlighted in the unnerving new trailer for the documentary, Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, debuting March 26th on HBO.
The clip starts by taking on one of the major misconceptions about American voting machines — that concerns about hacking are unwarranted because voting machines don’t connect to the internet. In fact, many machines do connect to the internet — very easily — and hacking them is really just one of several ways outside actors can tamper with the election process, leading to long lines and delays at polling places and greater mistrust in this crucial democratic act.
The clip goes on to highlight the work of one of the film’s central characters, the Finnish hacker and cybersecurity expert, Harri Hursti. It also teases an interview with an anonymous hacker from India known as CyberZeist, who said he hacked Alaska’s vote-counting computer systems on the day of the 2016 election. “I had full access,” he says. “I could have changed any vote.”