The issue of data and personal details being hacked is a problem seen to plague the entire world. From small companies, to giant conglomerates and even government institutions, we are constantly reading about how hacker groups are constantly stealing and selling this sensitive information on the dark web.
Recently, it has been reported that the United Kingdom's Electoral Commission database has been hacked and the personal details of 40 million voters in the country have been exposed for a year. The Commission said that they detected suspicious activity in October 2022, but said that it is highly probable that the intrusion was expected to occur as early as August 2021.
This statement about hacking has just been made because the Election Commission wants to improve their data security system and to reduce the risk of new hacking attacks happening and they are not prepared to face it.
Through a statement issued, they said that the exposed data included the names and addresses of residents in the UK who voted between 2014 and 2022. The data given to the commission via email and digital forms was also reportedly exposed. This includes for UK citizens abroad who are registered to vote.
In the meantime, information about donations given to political parties in the UK is not exposed because the details are stored in a different database.
The commission also could not confirm whether the hacker only read the exposed data, or whether it was stolen as well. While much of this data is already technically accessible to the general public, it can be combined with other personal data and information to build social engineering profiles, which can be used for even more nefarious purposes.
They also say that this incident will not change the way the commission does its job, and that UK elections will continue as usual.