Using “return-oriented programming” for Sequoia AVC Advantage Electronic Voting Machine Hacking

[Lisa Kachold]

Excerpt:

"Voting machines must remain secure throughout their entire service
lifetime, and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming
technique can be used to take control of a voting machine that was
designed to resist takeover, but that did not anticipate this new kind
of malicious programming," said Hovav Shacham, a professor of computer
science at the University of California, San Diego.

In 2007, Shacham first described return-oriented programming, which is
a powerful systems security exploit that generates malicious behavior
by combining short snippets of benign code already present in the
system. The new study demonstrates that return-oriented programming
can be used to execute vote-stealing computations by taking control of
a voting machine designed to prevent code injection. Shacham and UC
San Diego computer science Ph.D. student Stephen Checkoway
collaborated with researchers from Princeton University and the
University of Michigan on this project.

The computer scientists had no access to the machine's source code --
or any other proprietary information -- when designing the
demonstration attack. By using just the information that would be
available to anyone who bought or stole a voting machine, the
researchers addressed a common criticism made against voting security
researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic access to the systems they
study.

"Based on our understanding of security and computer technology, it
looks like paper-based elections are the way to go. Probably the best
approach would involve fast optical scanners reading paper ballots.
These kinds of paper-based systems are amenable to statistical audits,
which is something the election security research community is
shifting to," said Shacham. He added that "you can actually run a
modern and efficient election on paper that does not look like the
Florida 2000 Presidential election. If you are using electronic voting
machines, you need to have a separate paper record at the very least."

To take over the voting machine, the computer scientists found a flaw
in its software that could be exploited with return-oriented
programming. But before they could find a flaw in the software, they
had to reverse engineer the machine's software and its hardware --
without the benefit of source code. "

from:  http://www.ddj.com/security/219200010

Other Links (including  description in pdf form):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810161902.htm
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~hovav/dist/rop.pdf

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