The International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) has halted its annual leadership election after a trustee irretrievably lost a private decryption key required to unlock results stored in the Helios voting system.
Helios is an open-source platform designed to cast and count votes with strong cryptographic protections, ensuring ballot secrecy while allowing voters to verify their votes were counted fairly.
According to IACR bylaws, three independent trustees hold equal shares of the cryptographic key material needed to decrypt the final results. The loss of one share makes decryption impossible, preventing the association from confirming or verifying the outcome.
To mitigate similar risks in the future, IACR announced a change to its key-management approach, now requiring only two of the three shares for decryption. Trustee Moti Yung has resigned and will be replaced by Michel Abdalla.
The IACR noted that a new election has begun and will run through December 20, with Helios continuing to be used under the updated two-share threshold.
