Polys: Kaspersky Lab, at its annual Cyber Security Weekend Conference, announced an innovation that came from the Kaspersky Lab Business Incubator: A customizable e- voting platform for non-profit organizations, businesses, and communities, which uses blockchain technology and is secure because it has transparent cryptographic algorithms.
The concept of online voting attracts many stakeholders in modern society, such as universities, businesses, and communities that want to "listen" to their members - who are often located in different geographical locations or do not wish to participate in physical voting.
However, the risk of making life-critical choices online remains high, with large-scale online voting providing huge opportunities for cybercriminals to manipulate the results. During Cyber Security Weekend, a panel of experts from Kaspersky Lab, Agriledger and Richtopia focused on how we can make the process secure and ensure that our votes are not changed or tampered with by external or internal actors.
During the discussions, Kaspersky Lab presented the experimental project “Polys”, a new commercial product created by a team of developers from the Business Incubator, which aims to provide anyone with the ability to conduct secure, anonymous and scalable electronic voting with results that cannot be modified by participants or organizers.
Vartan Minasyan, Head of Investment and Innovation at Kaspersky Lab, commented: “ At Kaspersky Lab Business Incubator we support the development of new ideas and technologies originating from both internal and external teams, which can be applied in various areas where protection and security are important parameters . One such area is e-voting and , in fact , by exploring the possible implementations of blockchain more extensively, our team realized that this technology combined with the company’s expertise in digital security could solve key problems related to privacy, transparency and security of e-voting. We are excited that we were able to create a suitable environment for this internal innovation . ”
Polys is based on smart contracts on Ethereum (sometimes referred to as Blockchain 2.0) which allows for vote verification and voting to be conducted in a decentralized manner. The security advantages of blockchain voting are significant:
- Due to the decentralized nature of blockchain, the accuracy of the voting process can be verified by network participants. All voting data is stored not on servers, but in blocks of information on the computers of all network participants. To delete it, a hacker would have to hack all computers and gain access to individual data sets.
- Blockchain technology allows a voter to check whether their vote has been registered correctly and any tampering with the results will automatically become apparent.
- The transparency of blockchain technology makes it easier to track votes and complete voting audits by independent parties.
- Finally, no additional resources or the need for physical presence of staff are required.
An additional innovation of the Polys solution is that it eliminates the limitations inherent in other blockchain solutions:
- Within the Polys voting system, the blockchain is encrypted and supported by mathematical algorithms. These help ensure anonymity, hide intermediate results, and perform calculations on encrypted data, which cannot be done in other blockchain systems due to their distributed and open nature.
- Polys' source code is publicly available – allowing any blockchain technology enthusiast, penetration tester, or e-voting advocate to test, verify, and explore the technology behind it on GitHub.
Jutta Steiner, co-founder of Parity Technologies, a supporter and advisor to the project, comments: “ Parity Technologies is excited to be involved with Polys as their platform of choice for such an innovative project. Blockchain technology is increasingly being implemented by a large number of industries and we believe that decentralizing the voting process will ensure a fair process and create a high level of trust in the system.”
For those who wish to try the service, there is a freemium offering, available to everyone and easy to set up. Polys also offers a custom platform, which is fully scalable, with a capacity of thousands of voters and can be adapted to specific requirements in terms of authorization, interface design and integration with other services.
More information about the solution and technology can be found on the dedicated website.
