Report: Hackers steal data on 19 million California voteRs
Report: Hackers steal data on 19 million California voters
BY DML NEWS/ DECEMBER 15, 2017
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Practically every registered voter in the state of California has had their personal information stolen by cyber criminals, researchers at a security firm announced Friday.
Hackers have stolen the data of 19,264,123 registered voters in California, and worse, it is reportedly being held for ransom, with hackers demanding 0.2 Bitcoin, worth approximately $3,500, before they will release the stolen files.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that researchers at the German digital security firm, Kromtech Security Center, discovered the breach in early December, and detailed their discovery in a blog posted Friday.
Bob Diachenko, head of communications for Kromtech, said they had notified California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.
Kromtech’s reported role is to search for misconfigured databases stored on cloud accounts that may accidentally reveal private information. In early December, they discovered a misconfigured database stored in an Amazon cloud account, which contained data on over 19 million California voters.
That data included each person’s full name, home address, phone number, email address, gender, date of birth and precinct information. Social security numbers were NOT included, the report states.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported:
Kromtech says that, at worse, deleting parts of the data could affect California’s voting process. At minimum, the data could end up for sale on the “Dark Web,” it said.
Bob Diachenko, head of communications at Kromtech, explained that the breach underscores the need for states to beef up their cyber security measures to keep voter data safe.
“This is a massive amount of data and a wake up call for millions citizens of California who have done nothing more than fulfil the civic duty to vote,” Diachenko said.
“This discovery highlights how a simple human error of failing to enact the basic security measures can result in a serious risk to stored data. The MongoDB was left publically available and was later discovered by cyber criminals who seemed to steal the data, which origin is still unknown.”
California’s Secretary of State said their state system has not been breached, and released the following statement:
We are looking into unconfirmed reports that a third party may have uploaded some California voter information in an unsecure location online. We take any allegation of improper use of voter data very seriously, and have enlisted the support of law enforcement. There is no evidence that any of the Secretary of State’s systems have been hacked or breached or that any confidential information such as social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, state ID numbers, or voter signatures were disclosed. Under state law, limited voter data is made available for restricted use by campaigns, journalists, and academic researchers. It is illegal under state law to share or obtain this data without authorization.
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