Russian Federal Remote E-voting Scheme of 2021 -- Protocol Description and Analysis

Jelizaveta Vakarjuk; Nikita Snetkov; Jan Willemson

Paper 2021/1454

Russian Federal Remote E-voting Scheme of 2021 -- Protocol Description and Analysis

Jelizaveta Vakarjuk

, Cybernetica (Estonia), STACC

Nikita Snetkov

, Cybernetica (Estonia), STACC, Tallinn University of Technology

Jan Willemson

, Cybernetica (Estonia)

Abstract

This paper presents the details of one of the two cryptographic remote e-voting protocols used in the Russian parliamentary elections of 2021. As the official full version of the scheme has never been published by the election organisers, our paper aims at putting together as complete picture as possible from various incomplete sources. As all the currently available sources are in Russian, our presentation also aims at serving the international community by making the description available in English for further studies. In the second part of the paper, we provide an initial analysis of the protocol, identifying the potential weaknesses under the assumptions of corruption of the relevant key components. As a result, we conclude that the biggest problems of the system stem from weak voter authentication. In addition, as it was possible to vote from any device with a browser and Internet access, the attack surface was relatively large in general.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Applications
Publication info: Published elsewhere. EICC '22
DOI: 10.1145/3528580.3528586
Keywords: e-voting DEG Russian e-voting e-elections voting authentication
Contact author(s): jelizaveta vakarjuk @ cyber ee
nikita snetkov @ cyber ee
jan willemson @ cyber ee
History: 2022-08-22: last of 3 revisions; 2021-10-29: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2021/1454
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2021/1454,
      author = {Jelizaveta Vakarjuk and Nikita Snetkov and Jan Willemson},
      title = {Russian Federal Remote E-voting Scheme of 2021 -- Protocol Description and Analysis},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2021/1454},
      year = {2021},
      doi = {10.1145/3528580.3528586},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/1454}
}