Meet the 11-year-old boy who hacked government website in 10 minutes and changes election results

An 11-year-old boy hacked into a replica website used by the Florida Secretary of State to report election results and changed the election results once he gained access into the site.

 

11-year-old Emmett Brewster was able to hack it in just 10 minutes. This happened last Friday at this year’s DEFCON hacking conference in Las Vegas.

 

At the conference, Emmett and many other children were offered the chance to hack into a mock-up of a Secretary of State website. According to DEFCON spokespeople, the kids were offered 13 replicas of Secretary of State websites, with Florida being the first. Emmett succeeded in hacking Florida’s website in only a few minutes.

 

11-year-old boy hacks government website in 10 minutes and changes election results

 

Emmett was one of about 50 children between the ages of 8 and 16 who took part in a kid-specific workshop at this year’s hacker conference. According to Quartz, the kids were able to manipulate various things on the mock websites, including vote counts, candidate names, and party names.

 

11-year-old boy hacks government website in 10 minutes and changes election results