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New York is reviewing its voting infrastructure to avoid hacks

No evidence of tampering in the last election, but just to be sure before the next...

Amid the growing investigation into Russia's interference in the US Presidential election, New York is taking the initiative to check whether anybody meddled with its voting machines. Governor Cuomo has tasked the state's Cyber Security Advisory Board to both investigate potential incursions and review the state's entire voting infrastructure to suss out weak points that hackers might attack in the future.

The governor's press release emphasizes that "there have been no credible reports of electoral system disruptions in New York" to date, though it's unclear if the state was one of the 39 attacked by hackers last year. But to proactively head off future attempts to break into election systems across the state, the board will work with the state's DMV and IT office, as well as the State and County Boards of Elections, to identify weaknesses in cybersecurity and report back to Cuomo in 90 days.

New York might be the first state to take such proactive measures, but others will likely follow. The US intelligence community continues to unravel Russian-directed interference in the last election, but the information that does make it to the public -- including the documents clumsily leaked by The Intercept two weeks ago -- indicates that hackers targeted vendors that sold voting software intended for local machines. The worry is real.