A cyber attack against the Electoral Commission of United Kingdom allowed “hostile actors” seize the data of millions of voters for more than a year, the institution reported on Tuesday.
“We suffered a complex cyberattack through which hostile actors gained access to our systems,” the independent body tweeted, without saying who were the authors who consulted the servers with copies of the electoral information of millions of people.
“We know which systems they were able to access but we cannot conclusively determine which folders they consulted”reported the director general of the Election Commission, Shaun McNally, in a statement.
According to the agency, the attack was detected in October 2022, after suspicious activity was discovered in its systems. This confirmed “Clearly hostile actors first consulted the systems in August 2021.” “We’re sorry it took so long to notice”he added.
The Electoral Commission calmed the waters by stressing that it is “very difficult to use a cyber attack to influence the democratic process.”
After the 2016 Brexit referendum and during the 2017 general elections, the British authorities suspected that Russia tried to influence the vote.
The Electoral Commission explained that it had to take corrective measures, including blocking access by hackers, launching “additional security measures” before making the incident public.
Source: AFP
Source: Gestion
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