The Indian National Congress alleges that the Election Commission's online portal for voter registration and related services is designed to centralise deletions from BJP headquarters, citing reported vulnerabilities in the poll panel’s voter-services website and ECINET application.
The Indian National Congress has made a significant allegation against the Election Commission (EC) regarding its online portal designed for voter registration and related services. On Thursday, the opposition party claimed that the system is centralised to handle all deletions and additions from the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters. This assertion comes in light of the reported vulnerabilities found by a security researcher in the EC's voter-services website and ECINET application in July.
The allegation follows a report published by Hindustan Times on September 23, which detailed the identified flaws in the EC's online portal. The researcher had warned that these vulnerabilities could expose election officials’ contact details and allow attackers to access or forge data on the application.
When the security researcher, Nisarga Adhikary, emailed CERT-In on July 8, copying the Election Commission’s complaints address, he did not receive a response. However, on October 9, CERT-In replied to Adhikary, stating that one vulnerability had been fixed and work on the others was ‘under progress’. It was not clear when the reported fix had been made.
A critical vulnerability indentified by the researcher involved a server that could return the names and mobile numbers of election officials without requiring a login or CAPTCHA security test. He said the information could potentially be collected across states, districts, constituencies and different officer roles.
The latest allegations come amid protests about the Election Commission’s handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Demonstrations are being held in several parts of the country calling for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign over concerns about the exercise.
Source:
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