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Ahead of elections, Israel fears foreign cyber meddling

Israeli experts warn against foreign manipulation on social networks ahead of the elections, but also against lack of regulation in the war against cyber-attacks.
People walk past a campaign poster of Benny Gantz, a former Israeli armed forces chief and the head of a new political party, Israel Resilience, in Jerusalem, January 29, 2019  REUTERS/Ammar Awad - RC16AFABDBD0
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In June 2017, the Knesset Science and Technology Committee devoted a hearing to the cyber threat against Israel’s elections. Experts assured lawmakers that ballots are not under threat because the Central Elections Committee has an independent, closed-circuit system that cannot be hacked. “We decided not to go over to computerized voting, mostly because of what happened in the US presidential election,” an Israeli source close to the elections committee told Al-Monitor. “We would rather count the votes [by hand] at a slower pace, and ascertain that there is no possible infiltration of a computerized system by external elements.”

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