A former student may face criminal charges after hacking the University of Western Ontario’s online student union election, according to London, Ont. police.
All 10,000 votes cast in the election were canned as a result, according to the Western Gazette.
Voting began Feb. 13 but was cancelled and declared “invalid” by the evening of Feb. 14 as it was impossible to determine how much the hack impacted the votes.
Keith Horwood, a Western alumnus, confessed and apologized for the hacking in a YouTube video Feb. 16.
“Essentially, [the perpetrator] hacked into the system and changed the website title to one pertaining to Justin Bieber and the other to Selena Gomez,” said Andrew Forgione, president of Western’s student council. “Once inside the site, Western University’s [tech] department, who runs the server for us, was unable to track what was done.”
Having used an online voting system since the late 1990s, Forgione said Western was “shocked” to discover the system could be hacked, especially since it’s never happened before. Many believed a candidate was responsible because of a heated race, he said.
Horwood posted a video online confessing and explaining his actions just days after the incident. He said he found a “security flaw” on the elections website.
“Immediately when I saw it, this light went off in my head,” Horwood said in the video. “It was like somebody had just put the world’s coolest toy or the world’s most attractive woman in front of me and said, ‘Stay away,’ and I couldn’t.”
Horwood said his actions were “naïve and silly.”
An investigation is still ongoing, according to London police, but they couldn’t confirm whether Horwood would be charged or what he would be facing.
Forgione said most of the changes Horwood made were “cosmetic,” simply changing the name or redirecting to a new page as opposed to actually changing the results of the election. He said Western’s technology specialists have already revamped the website’s security to ensure another hack doesn’t occur during the re-vote, scheduled for March 1.
Alexander Golovko, president-elect of the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), was supportive of online elections at Carleton, along with the current president, Obed Okyere.
Golovko said the incident at Western is “unfortunate” but that just means Carleton will have to take extra security measures if they move to online elections in the future
“The incident is very worrisome,” Golovko said.
Golovko said he believes the system at Carleton has been tested and is extremely secure.
“In the future, because of the Western incident, we will have try to make sure that all the possible precautions are taken,” he said.
“In my understanding, perhaps the computer system was not ready enough,” Golovko said. “However, I do think that if online elections are run in a quickly and secure manner, they are beneficial to the student population and whatever other university.”
At this point, it remains unclear whether or not CUSA will move to online elections next year.
“Everything requires research, and hopefully we’ll have a report ready for council and committee in the near future in terms of if this is something the organization will pursue,” Golovko said.
Golovko continues to support the use of online elections and believes it could be highly beneficial at Carleton.
“Looking at the Board of Governor’s election the previous year, online elections increased voter turnout, it’s easier to reach out to people, people who don’t commute to campus as often as other people,” Golovko said.
— with files from Lana Peric and Sarah Brandon
