Forensic firm discovers security bugs, Ukrainian national anthem written into NH voter database

A forensic firm discovered security bugs as well as the Ukrainian national anthem written into the code of a voter database in New Hampshire. 

New Hampshire election officials hired a small Connecticut-based IT firm, to update its voter registration database ahead of the 2024 election.

The company decided to outsource some of the software work offshore. 

New Hampshire officials hired a forensics firm, ReversingLabs, to investigate the work that was completed. 

The firm later discovered "software misconfigured to connect to servers in Russia and the use of open-source code — which is freely available online — overseen by a Russian computer engineer convicted of manslaughter," according to anonymous sources cited in a Politico report. 

A coder also wrote the Ukrainian national anthem into the database software.

ReversingLabs has not disclosed the vendor that outsourced the work.

The security issues were resolved ahead of the 2024 presidential primary election, according to the report.