In this case, what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.
And it may indicate even more significant election cyber threats than many have acknowledged.
Election cybersecurity in the hands of kids
Two 11-year-olds, one girl and one boy, were able to hack into replicated voter databases and change vote tallies in under 30 minutes.
It happened at DEF CON 2018, where a group of children attempted to hack 13 imitation Secretary of State websites linked to voting in presidential battleground states.
It was part of the "Voting Machine Hacking Village" and in all, about three dozen kids were able to hack one of the replicated sites.
Nico Sell is the co-founder of the non-profit r00tz Asylum, which teaches children how to become white hat hackers, and she says the kids that hacked these sites prove a crucial point.
Sell talked to PBS NewsHour, which has a good write-up on the DEF CON kids hacking competition:
“These are very accurate replicas of all of the sites. These things should not be easy enough for an 8-year-old kid to hack within 30 minutes, it’s negligent for us as a society.”
Secretaries of States statement on election cybersecurity
The National Association of Secretaries of States has since issued a statement pushing back against the competition's results:
"We are... concerned that creating 'mock' election office networks and voter registration databases for participants to defend and/or hack is also unrealistic. It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilize unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols."
Have those updated protocols already been bypassed in Florida?
Perhaps.
U.S. Senator Bill Nelson claimed last week that Russian hackers have infiltrated parts of the state's elections networks and have "free reign to move about."
