My letter urging Georgia governor to veto anti-hacking bill

April 16, 2018

Office of the Governor
206 Washington Street
111 State Capitol
Atlanta, Georgia 30334


Re: SB 315

Dear Governor Deal:

I am writing to urge you to veto SB315, the "Unauthorized Computer Access" bill.

The cybersecurity community, of which Georgia is a leader, is nearly unanimous that SB315 will make cybersecurity worse. You've undoubtedly heard from many of us opposing this bill. It does not help in prosecuting foreign hackers who target Georgian computers, such as our elections systems. Instead, it prevents those who notice security flaws from pointing them out, thereby getting them fixed. This law violates the well-known Kirchhoff's Principle, that instead of secrecy and obscurity, that security is achieved through transparency and openness.

That the bill contains this flaw is no accident. The justification for this bill comes from an incident where a security researcher noticed a Georgia state election system had made voter information public. This remained unfixed, months after the vulnerability was first disclosed, leaving the data exposed. Those in charge decided that it was better to prosecute those responsible for discovering the flaw rather than punish those who failed to secure Georgia voter information, hence this law.

Too many security experts oppose this bill for it to go forward. Signing this bill, one that is weak on cybersecurity by favoring political cover-up over the consensus of the cybersecurity community, will be part of your legacy. I urge you instead to veto this bill, commanding the legislature to write a better one, this time consulting experts, which due to Georgia's thriving cybersecurity community, we do not lack.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,
Robert Graham
(formerly) Chief Scientist, Internet Security Systems