Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
What specific vulnerabilities were identified in Hart InterCivic machines during 2024 security audits?
Executive summary
Security audits and official test reports from 2024 on Hart InterCivic’s Verity/Vanguard family show little public evidence of newly discovered, exploitable software vulnerabilities in Hart’s most recent certified code—state test reports note “no potential vulnerabilities” in Verity 3.2 [1] —but long-standing critiques and older academic reviews document systemic weaknesses in earlier Hart products and network/communications designs that remain part of the public record [2] [3]. Available sources do not mention a consolidated 2024 list of specific vulnerabilities discovered during audits beyond routine findings and historical issues; contemporary Hart materials emphasize security-by-design and an active vulnerability disclosure policy [4] [5].
1. What the 2024/late-stage vendor and test reports say: “No potential vulnerabilities” in the tested code
The California test report for Hart Verity Voting 3.2 explicitly states that no discrepancy findings or potential vulnerabilities were identified within that code base during its review [1]. Hart’s public-facing security and product-security pages reiterate that Verity devices are engineered with defense-in-depth, secure boot, digitally signed logs and a vulnerability-disclosure channel—framing their posture as proactively managed [4] [5]. These vendor and state testing artifacts imply that formal 2024-stage software conformance testing did not produce an enumerated list of newly discovered, exploitable flaws in the examined releases [1] [4].
2. Historic and academic critiques: systemic issues recorded in past independent reviews
Independent academic work and systemic studies have documented serious vulnerabilities in older Hart-related hardware and software architectures. The EVEREST-era academic evaluations and follow-up analyses described systemic weaknesses, undocumented functionality and integrity attack vectors in historically examined Hart systems and other vendors—these remain part of the scholarly record and contextualize why researchers and officials scrutinize modern updates [2]. Those reports do not directly identify new 2024 vulnerabilities but show a precedent of architectural concerns that shape current testing priorities [2].
3. Network and communications concerns raised by watchdogs and databases
Verified Voting’s equipment database and similar summaries have previously called out Hart systems’ communication designs—reporting that certain older Hart designs used cleartext communications between devices and county-wide symmetric keys with weak key management that could let a single compromised polling-place device facilitate forged messages countywide [3]. Those findings pertain to earlier product lines (e.g., eScan family) and infrastructure choices; they are cited publicly as lingering considerations when jurisdictions deploy or retire particular Hart models [3].
4. Vendor response and mitigation framing: security controls and transparency claims
Hart’s product pages and FAQs stress specific mitigations: physical locks and tamper-evident seals, strict application/hardware whitelists, secure boot, digitally signed audit logs and restrictions preventing voters from inserting external media into devices [5] [6]. Hart also emphasizes a vulnerability-disclosure policy and invites researchers to report flaws, framing their posture as “Secure by Design/Validation” and indicating a willingness to remediate credible findings [4] [5].
5. Gaps in public reporting for 2024 audits: what is not found in available sources
Available sources do not mention a single consolidated list of specific vulnerabilities discovered in 2024 audits beyond the “no potential vulnerabilities” outcome for the Verity 3.2 code review [1]. They do not publish a red-team penetration-test report from 2024 that enumerates exploitable defects, nor do they provide an independent 2024 forensic disclosure catalog in the provided materials; therefore, definitive statements about newly uncovered 2024 exploits cannot be drawn from the documents at hand [1] [4].
6. How to interpret competing perspectives: reconciliation of “no findings” with past critiques
State/certification test reports and vendor assertions that no vulnerabilities were found in examined releases [1] [4] coexist with older academic and watchdog critiques of prior Hart designs [2] [3]. The reasonable interpretation is that modern Verity/Vanguard releases underwent code review and testing that did not reproduce historical faults in their specific codebases, while legacy architectural critiques remain relevant for older models and for assumptions about networked deployments [1] [3] [2].
7. What to watch next and recommended sourcing for deeper verification
To confirm whether operational or field audits in 2024 produced additional findings beyond what’s publicly posted, reporters and officials should request the full test and penetration-test artifacts from state certification laboratories, Hart’s vulnerability-disclosure logs, and any independent third-party pen-test reports cited by election officials—none of which are included in the current source set (available sources do not mention full 2024 pen-test artifacts). Reviewers should also track Verified Voting and academic publications for follow-up technical analyses that might surface latent issues in deployed configurations [3] [2].
Sources cited: Hart InterCivic Verity Voting 3.2 test report [1]; Hart InterCivic security/product pages and FAQ [4] [5] [6]; academic EVEREST/systemic issues paper [2]; Verified Voting equipment database summary [3].