Databases constitute the core of electronic elections and with a very large volume of sensitive information. The voter database in India was recorded to hold over 550 million voter records, while in USA there are 200 million recorded. Hence, electoral database plays a critical role in national elections, and have become prime targets of cyber interference and attacks. The research work on electoral databases to provide High Availability, Confidentiality and Integrity of electoral records is vital. This paper performed a thorough risk assessment of electoral database infrastructure to determine top information Assets, Threats, and Vulnerabilities. The results demonstrated that secure design of electoral database can provide defence against cyber-attacks. The research findings equally showed that the implementation of election-specific games and materials can boost Cybersecurity Awareness and Training for Database Security (CATDS). ISO/IECC 27002:2022 and NIST best practices revealed the need for CATDS. The paper recommended a model for cyber security policy to ensure High Availability and fault tolerance for electoral database. The research indicated that regular intrusion testing, timely software updates and quarterly risk assessment, are essential techniques for superlative database security.

Authors: Clement Chinaza Owuamalam, Funminiyi Olajide

Published in: International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST-2022)

• Date of Conference: 6-8 December 2022
• DOI: 10.20533/ICITST.2022.0004
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-55-6
• Conference Location: Virtual (London, UK)