If you have $42,200 burning a hole in your pocket, you too can buy the voter registration information of 35 million American’s on a hacking forum.
It’s yet another reminder that it’s hard to tell what your personal information is doing. In a recent report on CNET says that voter registration data on 35 million American;s from 19 different states is currently being sold on a hacking web forum:
The voter information for approximately 35 million US citizens is being peddled on a popular hacking forum, two threat intelligence firms have discovered.
“To our knowledge this represents the first reference on the criminal underground of actors selling or distributing lists of 2018 voter registration data,” said researchers from Anomali Labs and Intel471, the two companies who spotted the forum ad.
The two companies said they’ve reviewed a sample of the database records and determined the data to be valid with a “high degree of confidence.”
Researchers say the data contains details such as full name, phone numbers, physical addresses, voting history, and other voting-related information. It is worth noting that some states consider this data public and offer it for download for free, but not all states have this policy.
The article goes on to discuss the speculation on where the information is coming from. The hacker reportedly said that the data is continually being updated every week, suggesting that wherever the information is coming from, the source is still compromised. Authorities have also been contacted regarding the incident as well.
The kind of information being made available is no doubt useful for any bad actors out there. At the very least, it is possible to use this kind of information to influence future elections. It can also be used for spam purposes as well as who knows what other nefarious purposes.
In addition to this, it is also a reminder that no one is ever truly and perfectly safe from such a security lapse. While private companies like Facebook are typically the target, public government organizations can also very easily be a target as well.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
