The personal information of D.C. voters may have been exposed in a data breach that officials learned of earlier this month, authorities said in an update.
The personal information of D.C. voters may have been exposed in a data breach that officials learned of earlier this month, authorities said in an update.
The D.C. Board of Elections said they learned on Friday that a breached server contained a copy of the board’s voter roll. The board said the owner of that server, DataNet Systems, confirmed that “bad actors may have had access to the full voter roll.”
The voter roll includes personal information including “partial Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth and contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses,” the board said.
The board had said earlier that the records of fewer than 4,000 voters were affected. Here’s what we know so far.
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Who breached DC voting records?
The Board of Elections said they learned on Oct. 5 that a hacking group called RansomVC claimed to have breached voter records and accessed 600,000 lines of U.S. voter data, including those related to D.C.
D.C. voter information was accessed through a breach of DataNet Systems’ web server, the board said. Internal Board of Elections servers and databases were not directly breached.
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Most of the information that was accessed was public record, Board of Elections spokeswoman Sarah Graham had said on Oct. 6.
Who's investigating and what's next?
The Board of Elections is working with the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s Computer Incident Response Team, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and others.
The board will reach out to all registered voters and work with a cybersecurity consulting firm for help with the next steps.
Can DC residents still register to vote?
Yes. Though maintenance on the Board of Elections website is underway, officials say it’s safe and secure to register to vote online, using a paper form or in person. Go here for more info.
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Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.
