Konnech gave China access to 'astounding' amount of data

FPI / October 19, 2022

Los Angeles County prosecutor Eric Neff alleges that the Michigan-based Konnech election software company gave "Chinese contractors" access to "astounding" amounts of U.S. voter data in what may be "the largest data breach in United States history."

Eugene Yu, the CEO of Konnech, was criminally charged for allegedly storing Los Angeles election worker data on Chinese servers.

The LA prosecutors allege that Konnech allowed Chinese contractors to have "superadministration" access to its PollChief software, the Kaneoka Newsletter noted in an Oct. 18 report.

The Kanekoa Newsletter on substack.com, which has broken several stories on the Konnech-China connection, noted that the election software company “has been recruiting Chinese software engineers since at least December 7, 2005.”

On Aug. 10, 2021, Los Angeles County’s election office uploaded a network diagram of its Election Management System (EMS) called “EMS Future State v15” to the county registrar’s website. A network diagram is a digital roadmap that identifies data flow within an organization.

Los Angeles county’s diagram demonstrates that Konnech’s PollChief software has a direct “data integration” and “data exchange” point with the county’s overall EMS software.

PollChief appears to integrate with all kinds of voter information; "Voter Registration," "Voter Records," "Election Night Reporting," "Address Verification," and "Ballot Layout," among other data moves to that same “data integration” and “data exchange” point, according to the county’s diagram.

The team at electionfraud20.org, a collective of software developers, data scientists, and engineers who study election system vulnerabilities, say that Los Angeles County’s network diagram shows that “You are giving massive back-door access to all the critical election subsystems that are required to rig the election, in a way that no one will ever notice. And you are giving it to Chinese developers. If PollChief is compromised, this diagram shows that the whole election management system is compromised.”

The prosecutor’s complaint reads:

“Based on evidence recovered from a search warrant executed October 4, 2022, the District Attorney’s Office discovered that Konnech employees known and unknown sent personal identifying information of Los Angeles County election workers to third-party software developers who assisted with creating and fixing Konnech's internal ‘PollChief’ software.”

The complaint claims that Luis Nabergoi, a Konnech project manager overseeing the Los Angeles contract, wrote in a Chinese-owned messaging app that "any employee for Chinese contractors working on PollChief software had 'superadministration' privileges for all PollChief clients."

Sam Faddis, retired CIA operations officer and renowned national security author, wrote in his Substack:

"An individual with super administration access to a system can do effectively anything inside that system. He or she can delete data, steal data, alter data, change programming, etc. Perhaps most importantly, that individual can cover his or her tracks, because they can potentially also access and alter all security protocols and programs.

"So, Konnech, which has numerous questionable ties to Chinese entities was allowed to punch a hole into our election systems, and then Konnech was allowed to grant that same level of access to unknown “contractors” in China."

Free Press International
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