Analysing the Potential Vulnerabilities in Online Voting Protocols: Homomorphic Encryption Approach

Charles Yao Azameti; William Asiedu; George Asante

doi:10.24191/jcrinn.v10i2.515

Analysing the Potential Vulnerabilities in Online Voting Protocols: Homomorphic Encryption Approach

Authors

Charles Yao Azameti Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, Kumasi, Ghana. https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2457-3654
William Asiedu Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, Kumasi, Ghana.
George Asante Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, Kumasi, Ghana.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24191/jcrinn.v10i2.515

Keywords:

Blockchain Voting , Homomorphic Encryption, Electronic Voting Security

Abstract

Online voting offers a hopeful alternative to traditional voting approaches by improving accessibility, efficiency, and transparency in elections. However, despite their potential, these systems are prone to a variety of security vulnerabilities. This research aims to analyze the crucial vulnerabilities that can compromise the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of online voting systems. Key threats examined include cyber-attacks such as denial of service (DoS), man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, and malware injection, as well as issues related to voter authentication, anonymity, and coercion resistance. Additionally, the research evaluates the effectiveness of cryptographic techniques like homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and blockchain in mitigating these risks. The study provides a comprehensive review of existing protocols, identifies gaps in their security architectures, and proposes enhanced mechanisms to address the vulnerabilities. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the development of more robust and secure online voting systems that ensure voter trust and uphold democratic principles.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adida, B. (2008). Helios: Web-based open-audit voting. In USENIX Security Symposium (Vol. 17, pp. 335–348).

Agbesi, S., & Asante, G. (2019). Electronic voting recording system based on blockchain technology. In 2019 12th CMI Conference on Cybersecurity and Privacy (CMI) (pp. 1–8). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CMI48017.2019.8962142

Ahmad, A. H., Tabassum, F. N., Ayaz, S. A., Bahir, N., & Meelam, M. (2021). Electronic voting system: Nature, origin and its global application. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 15(2), 1334–1337.

Al Badawi, A., Polyakov, Y., Aung, K. M. M., Veeravalli, B., & Rohloff, K. (2021). Implementation and performance evaluation of RNS variants of the BFV homomorphic encryption scheme. IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, 9(2), 941–956. https://doi.org/10.1109/TETC.2019.2902799

Al-Shammari, A. F. N., Villafiorita, A., & Weldemariam, K. (2012). Understanding the development trends of electronic voting systems. In 2012 Seventh International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (pp. 186–195). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ARES.2012.76

Alvarez, R. M., & Hall, T. E. (2003). Point, click, and vote: The future of Internet voting. Rowman & Littlefield.

Balasubramanian, K., & Jayanthi, M. (2016). A homomorphic crypto system for electronic election schemes. Circuits and Systems, 07(10), 3193–3203. https://doi.org/10.4236/cs.2016.710272

Benaloh, J. C. (1987). Secret sharing homomorphisms: keeping shares of a secret (Extended Abstract). In A. M. Odlyzko (Ed.), Advances in Cryptology --- CRYPTO’ 86 (pp. 251–260). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Blakley, G. R. (1979). Safeguarding cryptographic keys. Managing Requirements Knowledge, International Workshop On (pp. 313-313). IEEE Computer Society. https://doi.org/10.1109/MARK.1979.8817296

Fan, X., Wu, T., Zheng, Q., Chen, Y., Alam, M., & Xiao, X. (2020). HSE-Voting: A secure high-efficiency electronic voting scheme based on homomorphic signcryption. Future Generation Computer Systems, 111, 754–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2019.10.016

Ganesh Prabhu, S., Nizarahammed., A., Prabu., S., Raghul., S., Thirrunavukkarasu, R. R., & Jayarajan, P. (2021). Smart online voting system. In 2021 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS) (pp. 632–634). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICACCS51430.2021.9441818

George, V., & Sebastian, M. (2010). An adaptive indexed binary search tree for efficient homomorphic coercion resistant voting scheme. International Journal of Managing Information Technology, 2(1), 1–9.

Hjalmarsson, F. P., Hreioarsson, G. K., Hamdaqa, M., & Hjalmtysson, G. (2018). Blockchain-based e-voting system. In IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, CLOUD (pp. 983–986). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CLOUD.2018.00151

Hussien, H., & Aboelnaga, H. (2013). Design of a secured e-voting system. In 2013 International Conference on Computer Applications Technology (ICCAT) (pp. 1–5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCAT.2013.6521985

Huszti, A. (2011). A homomorphic encryption-based secure electronic voting scheme. Publ. Math. Debrecen, 79(3–4), 479–496. https://doi.org/10.5486/PMD.2011.5142

Jabbar, I., & Alsaad, S. N. (2017). Design and Implementation of secure remote e-voting system using homomorphic encryption. Int. J. Netw. Secur., 19(5), 694–703.

Jafar, U., Aziz, M. J. A., & Shukur, Z. (2021). Blockchain for electronic voting system—Review and open research challenges. Sensors, 21(17), 5874. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21175874

Jafar, U., Aziz, M. J. A., Shukur, Z., & Hussain, H. A. (2022). A cost-efficient and scalable framework for e-voting system based on Ethereum blockchain. In 2022 International Conference on Cyber Resilience (ICCR) (pp. 1–6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCR56254.2022.9996026

Kaliyamurthie, K. P., Udayakumar, R., Parameswari, D., & Mugunthan, S. N. (2013). Highly secured online voting system over network. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 6(6), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.17485/ijst/2013/v6isp6.15

Kshetri, N., & Voas, J. (2018). Blockchain-Enabled E-Voting. IEEE Software, 35(4), 95–99. https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.2801546

Mursi, M. F. M., Assassa, G. M. R., Abdelhafez, A., & Samra, K. M. A. (2013). On the development of electronic voting: a survey. International Journal of Computer Applications, 61(16). https://doi.org/10.5120/10009-4872

Nofer, M., Gomber, P., Hinz, O., & Schiereck, D. (2017). Blockchain. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 59(3), 183–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-017-0467-3

Ogburn, M., Turner, C., & Dahal, P. (2013). Homomorphic Encryption. Procedia Computer Science, 20, 502–509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2013.09.310

Osgood, R. (2016). The future of democracy: Blockchain voting. COMP116: Information Security, 1–21.

Probor, M. N., Ahmed, M., Kabir, S. B., Fuad, M. M., & Bushra, T. (2023). Blockchain based e-voting system with homomorphic encryption and threshold signature. Brac University.

Qu, W., Wu, L., Wang, W., Liu, Z., & Wang, H. (2022). An electronic voting protocol based on blockchain and homomorphic signcryption. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 34(16). https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.5817

Ravindran, S., & Kalpana, P. (2013). Data Storage Security Using Partially Homomorphic Encryption in a Cloud. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:62933905

Rivest, R. L., Shamir, A., & Adleman, L. (1978). A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems. Communications of the ACM, 21(2), 120–126. https://doi.org/10.1145/359340.359342

Sayeed, S., & Marco-Gisbert, H. (2019). Assessing blockchain consensus and security mechanisms against the 51% attack. Applied Sciences, 9(9), 1788. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9091788

Smith, A. D., & Clark, J. S. (2005). Revolutionising the voting process through online strategies. Online Information Review, 29(5), 513–530. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520510628909

Stephen, R., & Alex, A. (2018). A review on blockchain security. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 396(1), 12030.

Tebaa, M., El Hajji, S., & El Ghazi, A. (2012). Homomorphic encryption method applied to Cloud Computing. In 2012 National Days of Network Security and Systems (pp. 86–89). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/JNS2.2012.6249248

Thakur, S., Olugbara, O. O., Millham, R., Wesso, H. W., & Sharif, M. (2014). Transforming voting paradigm - The shift from inline through online to mobile voting. In 2014 IEEE 6th International Conference on Adaptive Science & Technology (ICAST) (pp. 1-7). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICASTECH.2014.7068115

Will, M. A., Nicholson, B., Tiehuis, M., & Ko, R. K. L. (2015). Secure voting in the cloud using homomorphic encryption and mobile agents. In 2015 International Conference on Cloud Computing Research and Innovation (ICCCRI) (pp. 173–184). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCRI.2015.30

Wu, D. J. (2012). Using homomorphic encryption for large scale statistical analysis. FHE-SI-Report, Univ. Stanford, Tech. Rep. TR-dwu4.

Xiao, S., Wang, X. A., Wang, W., & Wang, H. (2020). Survey on blockchain-based electronic voting. In H. and M. H. Barolli Leonard and Nishino (Ed.), Advances in Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems (pp. 559–567). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29035-1_54

Yang, X., Yi, X., Nepal, S., Kelarev, A., & Han, F. (2018). A secure verifiable ranked choice online voting system based on homomorphic encryption. IEEE Access, 6, 20506–20519. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2817518

Yi, X., & Okamoto, E. (2013). Practical Internet voting system. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 36(1), 378–387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2012.05.005

Zhao, Z. (2014). An efficient anonymous authentication scheme for wireless body area networks using elliptic curve cryptosystem. Journal of Medical Systems, 38, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-014-0013-5