South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) concluded an in-depth assessment of the country’s election system on Tuesday, highlighting several security vulnerabilities within the infrastructure managed by the National Election Commission (NEC) — the state-run election watchdog. The analysis, which came a day ahead of a major Seoul ward by-election, reveals that multiple facets of the election system were exposed to potential breaches. These vulnerabilities range from unauthorized access mechanisms for pre-vote documents and the potential for the duplication of ballot papers to imperfections in the online voting authentication system that may not reliably counter proxy voting, coupled with penetrable communication setups at preliminary voting locations.

Systemic issues were a prominent part of the report’s findings. The NEC’s practice of employing relatively straightforward passwords emerged as a concern, potentially allowing easier unauthorized access to vital platforms. The NIS’s examination indicated that there was a lack of robust encryption for key information. Certain data, such as overseas voter databases, were found stored without encryption. This approach leaves the door open for potential internal server intrusions and also poses a risk concerning data integrity and privacy.