A village of hackers is beefing up election security

Published: Oct. 8, 2024, 10:05 a.m.

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Until about a decade ago, independent cybersecurity researchers in the U.S. weren’t allowed to examine voting machines for potential vulnerabilities. But that ban was essentially lifted in 2015. Two years later, DEF CON \u2014 one of the largest hacker conventions \u2014 decided to invite hackers, cybersecurity researchers and election officials to find those flaws during its annual Voting Village event. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams spoke with Catherine Terranova, executive director of Voting Village, about how they balance the well-intentioned work of finding vulnerabilities before bad actors do and the problem of misinformation around the security of voting machines.

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