LESS THAN $100 TO SECURE ELECTION NIGHT
Voting itself does not happen via Amazon. Voting machines in most states are not connected to any cloud service. But elections require a raft of other technologies to keep track of voters and provide information. Amazon often works with specialized partners, who actually do the bidding on government contracts and include Amazon as a preferred vendor. North Carolina chose Amazon Web Services over Microsoft’s Azure to deliver election night results reporting because it “was simple to set up (and) very low in cost,” the State Board of Elections said. Before it worked with Amazon, North Carolina spent “thousands of dollars” on a similar service. Amazon charged them less than $100 during elections in 2016 and 2018 for the same service, the State Board of Elections said. California’s Alameda County turned to Amazon’s cloud to let citizens view results on election night. The cost is less than $100 a year, county officials said. In his webinar to clients, Amazon’s Jackson said these services help the company win bigger contracts. For example, Oklahoma has tied up with an Amazon partner and pays $26,000 for two services on Amazon’s servers, Pam Slater, assistant secretary at the Oklahoma State Election board said. Amazon has three categories of election-related clients: election administrators in states and counties, political campaigns and election-related non-profits, the documents, presentations and interviews show. The company's expansion in the election arena reflects its broader dominance in the fast-growing cloud computing business. Amazon had 33% percent of the overall cloud market in the second quarter of 2019 followed by Microsoft, according to SRG Research. For a graphic on market share, click tmsnrt.rs/323b9Vw AWS, officially launched in 2006, generated $25.7 billion in sales in 2018 and is the company’s biggest profit-generator. It was not clear how big the election business is inside AWS and the company declined to provide any details.IS IT BULLET PROOF?
One of the main security concerns with election systems involves voter registration data, which Russian hackers breached in at least Arizona and Illinois in 2016, according to the FBI. Such databases generally include voter ID information such as partial social security numbers, addresses, voting history, party affiliation, whether an early ballot was sent, early primary ballots for independent voters, provisional ballots, and hand-written signatures of voters and absentee ballots, according to an analysis of RFP’s (request for proposal) from states looking to move such databases to the cloud. Vickery, the director at Upguard, uncovered at least three instances where voter data on Amazon’s cloud servers was exposed to the internet, which have been reported previously. For example, in 2017, he found a Republican contractor's database for nearly every registered American voter hosted on AWS exposed on the internet for 12 days. In 2016, he found Mexico's entire voter database on AWS servers was leaked. reut.rs/30J35be Amazon said the breaches were caused by customer errors, adding that while AWS secures the cloud infrastructure, customers are responsible for security of what goes in the cloud. Errors caused by customers could continue, experts said, as many employees of states and counties who use AWS services lack the skills and training to avoid such errors in the future. Greg Miller, co-founder of the OSET Institute, which works with the Department of Homeland Security and Congress on election security, also noted many of Amazon’s partners - such as technology companies also called managed service providers (MSP’s) who are tasked with delivering AWS services to customers - do not have the credentials or experience needed in delivering and handling election services. Amazon did not comment on the issue. None of these risks have failed to deter those that have signed up with AWS. “We think (AWS) provides us with the best available level of security,” said Ron Morgan, chief deputy county clerk of Travis County in Texas, one of the largest counties in the state, which uses Amazon’s servers to run its election website. “Is it bullet proof? I don’t know,” he added. “But is it a very, very hard target? Absolutely.”DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
Latest Stories
-
‘I look forward to working closely with President-elect Faye to enhance Ghanaian-Senegalese relations’ – Akufo-Addo
11 mins -
Girl, 8, only survivor as 45 killed in bus crash in South Africa
50 mins -
Biden to host star-studded NYC fundraiser with Obama and Clinton
55 mins -
GDNR, AAU and others launch Universal Acceptance for local languages in internet domain names
1 hour -
Ogum and Kotoko’s March malaise
3 hours -
2 repair vessels dispatched for undersea cable repairs – says NCA’s latest update
4 hours -
Multimedia Group Limited’s Clinton Yeboah shortlisted for 2 International Sports Press Association Awards
4 hours -
Supreme Court upholds High Court verdict on fraudulent sale of property by Senior Police Officer
4 hours -
NHIS Biometric Membership Authentication System limited rollout satisfactory – NHIA Deputy CEO
4 hours -
Yara Ghana donates 1,107 bags of fertilizers to women farmers, farmers with disabilities
4 hours -
Tinubu forms team to find solutions to ailing economy
5 hours -
Jacob Zuma barred from running in South Africa election
5 hours -
Western Cape Education wins national primary school track and field championships
5 hours -
Cyber Security Authority issues Public Alert over Easter and Eid al-Fitr season scams
5 hours -
Sandro Tonali charged by FA for alleged betting rules breaches after joining Newcastle
5 hours