The personal data of 4.6 million Illinois citizens ended up on the open Internet for any hacker to access, according to reports.
The documents were available through an unsecured cloud storage platform. They included Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and voter registration history.
Election security experts said the breach is unlikely to affect the upcoming election but could make affected individuals susceptible to identity theft.
The researcher, Jeremiah Fowler, has also identified similar data vulnerabilities which exposed thousands of rail passengers’ travel details in the United Kingdom and over 4 million student records in the U.S., among others.
“It’s probably some of the most sensitive voter data I’ve seen,” Fowler told Capitol News Illinois. “And I’ve been doing this around 10 years.”
Fowler identified 15 unsecure databases before contacting several county clerks and eventually a technology vendor that is contracted to provide services for those counties.
Fowler told Capitol News Illinois that the list of counties affected include Alexander, Boone, Champaign, DeKalb, Effingham, Gallatin, Hamilton, Henry, Jefferson, Ogle, Pike, Sangamon, St. Clair, Williamson and Winnebago.
This is the problem with these databases, they are easily hacked because government does not have any real idea about cyber security.
As always, government is the root of all failure.
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