British Election Commission apologizes for cyber attack including access to personal information of 40 million voters

The British Election Commission has apologized for the attackers' access to the names and addresses of all registered voters between 2014 and 2022. The identification of the incident that the attacker had accessed was in October 2022, and it has been criticized for taking eight months to announce.

Public notification of cyber-attack on Electoral Commission systems | Electoral Commission

Electoral Commission apologises for security breach involving UK voters' data | Electoral Commission |

Today we announced that we have been the subject of a complex cyber-attack, and our systems were accessed by hostile actors.

—Electoral Commission (@ElectoralCommUK) August 8, 2023

According to the UK Election Commission, the attackers first accessed the system in August 2021, and suspicious activity was detected and identified as being accessed by the attackers in October 2022. He said.

The attackers accessed the Election Commission's e-mails, management system, and the server where copies of the electoral rolls were stored. It contained a name and address.

The voter roll personal information that was accessible in this cyberattack does not, by itself, pose a high risk to individuals, but when combined with other data in the public domain, it can be used to infer patterns of behavior and identify individuals. It is possible to specify and profile.

Cyberattacks are not believed to affect the election process.

In response to an interview with The Guardian, Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert at the University of Surrey, said, ``The electoral rolls are public, but this cyber attack is pending discovery. 'Election commissions are an important part of our democracy and our electoral system is based entirely on trust, and this issue has eroded people's trust.' points out.

Andrew Rose, chief security officer for Europe at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, said, ``We're lucky that it didn't affect any elections, but undermining the democratic process is a social threat. This is an incredibly serious problem as it can lead to loss of control and catastrophic change.While the motives and goals of the attackers are unknown, the fact that they have been intrusive for a long period of time is a common It shows that he was looking for something other than financial gain, which is a strong motive.'