Researcher arrested and charged for hacking elections websites

The security expert David Levin was arrested and charged after discovering serious security flaws on a couple of election websites in Florida.

The security researcher David Levin, the owner of Vanguard Cybersecurity, was arrested and charged after discovering serious security flaws on a couple of elections websites in Florida.

In December Levin discovered that the elections website of Lee County was affected by an SQL injection vulnerability that allowed access to credentials stored in plain text. The expert also analyzed the Florida Division of Elections website discovering security vulnerabilities.

At this point, the researcher reported the issue to a supervisor of elections candidate, in January he made a video PoC of the SQL injection flaw that allowed him to access the credentials stored in the back-end of the elections website and then reported the issue to the Supervisor of Elections Office.

Unfortunately, the authorities arrested David Levin of Estero for unauthorized access of Lee County and state elections websites. He was released on a $15,000 bond after a few hours.

“The Florida Department of Law Enforcementaccused the 31-year-old Estero man of hacking into the state elections website Jan. 4 and Jan. 31. He hacked into the Lee County elections website Dec. 19.” reads the news-press.com website.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed that the expert exploited on a SQL Injection flaw in order to compromise the election website.

He hacked into the state elections website two times in January and one into the Lee County elections site in December.

“An SQL (Structured Query Language) is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications. An SQL injection enables an individual to obtain secure information, such as usernames and passwords, from vulnerable sources.”

Levin was released by the police on a $15,000 bond after a few hours.

It is hilarious, Levin thought he was doing the right thing, but authorities had a different opinion about his activities.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – elections websites, hacking)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.