A flawed pseudorandom number generator in Dominion Voting Systems ImageCast Precinct (ICP and ICP2) and ImageCast Evolution (ICE) scanners allows anyone to determine the order in which ballots were cast from public ballot-level data, allowing deanonymization of voted ballots, in several types of scenarios. This issue was observed for use of the following versions of Democracy Suite: 5.2, 5.4-NM, 5.5, 5.5-A, 5.5-B, 5.5-C, 5.5-D, 5.7-A, 5.10, 5.10A, 5.15. NOTE: the Democracy Suite 5.17 EAC Certificate of Conformance mentions Improved pseudo random number algorithm, which may be relevant.
The product uses a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) in a security context, but the PRNG’s algorithm is not cryptographically strong.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.2 (including) | 5.2 (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.4-nm (including) | 5.4-nm (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.5 (including) | 5.5 (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.5-a (including) | 5.5-a (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.5-b (including) | 5.5-b (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.5-c (including) | 5.5-c (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.5-d (including) | 5.5-d (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.7-a (including) | 5.7-a (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.10 (including) | 5.10 (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.10a (including) | 5.10a (including) |
| Democracy_suite | Dominionvoting | 5.15 (including) | 5.15 (including) |
When a non-cryptographic PRNG is used in a cryptographic context, it can expose the cryptography to certain types of attacks. Often a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) is not designed for cryptography. Sometimes a mediocre source of randomness is sufficient or preferable for algorithms that use random numbers. Weak generators generally take less processing power and/or do not use the precious, finite, entropy sources on a system. While such PRNGs might have very useful features, these same features could be used to break the cryptography.