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vpnMentor was established in 2014 to review VPN services and cover privacy-related stories. Today, our team of hundreds of cybersecurity researchers, writers, and editors continues to help readers fight for their online freedom in partnership with Kape Technologies PLC, which also owns the following products: ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access which may be ranked and reviewed on this website. The reviews published on vpnMentor are believed to be accurate as of the date of each article, and written according to our strict reviewing standards that prioritize professional and honest examination of the reviewer, taking into account the technical capabilities and qualities of the product together with its commercial value for users. The rankings and reviews we publish may also take into consideration the common ownership mentioned above, and affiliate commissions we earn for purchases through links on our website. We do not review all VPN providers and information is believed to be accurate as of the date of each article.

The ruling party in Israel in primaries election security blunder

Ran Bar-Zik Software Developer & Mentor

This is an amazing story about how security issues can inflict damage even on old fashioned paper ballot elections.
The Likud is Israel's ruling parties for a couple of years. This is the party of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. The Likud's primaries election were held on February 4, Those elections were old fashion - means no voting machines, no web system. Just old, plain, paper ballot thrown to a box. You know the drill.

After the elections, there were some miscalculations, issues, and highly suspicious results. The prime minister ordered recounting of the vote.
The recounting process is also made by hand, but someone needs to count those ballots and after counting the results should be written and aggregated in a computer. This how things are done, we collect the data by hand but write it down in a computer system.
In the middle of the process, one of the reporters got her hand on a picture of the system with the unofficial results.

Voting system
Twitter snapshot, the text says that the recounting is in the process and you can see that the voting is different from the initial count. If you will look closely, you will see that the IP address is visible. I and other Twitter users tried to put this IP in our browsers and… I was surprised to find out that I have full access to the entire recounting system.
Full access to the results FULL access, that's right - not just viewing permission but also access to the editing interface - it means that I could change the recounting results freely.

Full results
Editing interface - fully functional. That's correct, ladies and gentlemen! The system's software engineers made the rather questionable decision of not implementing any access control measures. Consequently, anyone who knew the IP address of the system - and there were numerous individuals in possession of this information - had the ability to manipulate the voting results.

Tampering potential
If even simple access control measures were not installed, what else went wrong in that system? in other systems? Can we believe that no one exploited the recounting process? Does this system was used in the previous counting?

This recounting process is contaminated. The Likud party must hire an external security professional to validate the recounting process.

We review vendors based on rigorous testing and research but also take into account your feedback and our affiliate commission with providers. Some providers are owned by our parent company.
Learn more
vpnMentor was established in 2014 to review VPN services and cover privacy-related stories. Today, our team of hundreds of cybersecurity researchers, writers, and editors continues to help readers fight for their online freedom in partnership with Kape Technologies PLC, which also owns the following products: ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access which may be ranked and reviewed on this website. The reviews published on vpnMentor are believed to be accurate as of the date of each article, and written according to our strict reviewing standards that prioritize professional and honest examination of the reviewer, taking into account the technical capabilities and qualities of the product together with its commercial value for users. The rankings and reviews we publish may also take into consideration the common ownership mentioned above, and affiliate commissions we earn for purchases through links on our website. We do not review all VPN providers and information is believed to be accurate as of the date of each article.

About the Author

Ran is an experienced Software Developer & Mentor. Specializing in MEAN stack and LAMP stack. Developing modules and plug-ins for WordPress. Extensive knowledge in all client side technologies: JavaScript. HTML and CSS. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barzik

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