The UK’s election watchdog has announced that it was the target of a “complex cyber-attack” that could have affected millions of votes. According to the Electoral Commission, undisclosed “hostile actors” gained access to electoral register copies beginning in August 2021.
Hackers also gained access to the company’s emails and “control systems,” although the attack was not identified until October of last year.
The watchdog has cautioned users to be wary about unauthorized data use.
The commission stated in a public notification that hackers gained access to copies of the registrations it was storing for research and background checks on political contributors.
Shaun McNally, the commission’s chief executive officer, stated that the agency knew which of its systems were accessible to the hackers but could not “conclusively” determine which files were accessed.
The information possessed by the watchdog at the time of the hack includes the names and addresses of persons in the United Kingdom who registered to vote between 2014 and 2022.
This includes those who chose to keep their information off the open register, which is not accessible to the public but can be acquired by credit reference bureaus, for example.
The data accessed also included the names – but not the addresses – of overseas voters, it added.
However, the data of people who qualified to register anonymously – for safety or security reasons – was not accessed, the watchdog said.
The commission says it is difficult to predict exactly how many people could be affected, but it estimates the register for each year contains the details of around 40 million people.
The information possessed by the watchdog at the time of the hack includes the names and addresses of persons in the United Kingdom who registered to vote between 2014 and 2022.
This includes those who chose to keep their information off the open register, which is not accessible to the public but can be acquired by credit reference bureaus, for example.
