Misconfigured Database Exposes Details of 191 Million US Voters

[frogboy]

Content source

http://news.softpedia.com/news/misconfigured-database-exposes-details-of-191-million-us-voters-498185.shtml

Security researcher Chris Vickery has identified a misconfigured database that contains the personal details of 191,337,174 US voters.

The unprotected database was discovered on December 20, contains over 300 GB of data, and includes details such as full names, voter IDs, home addresses, email addresses, party affiliations, ethnicity, telephone numbers, and more. Fortunately, no Social Security numbers were included, and nor were driver's license numbers or any type of financial information.

The database is still available online
After a week-long investigation from Chris Vickery, Steve Ragan of Salted Hash, andDataBreaches.net, the owner of the database was not identified and the database still remains easy accessible online.

It is a common practice in the US for states to create voter databases, which are then aggregated and offered to authorized individuals, like political parties, non-profits, scholars, journalists, law enforcement, and others.

Most states have different rules and laws on who gets to access the database, what information is collected, and what type of data is allowed to be made public.

Full article. Misconfigured Database Exposes Details of 191 Million US Voters

 

[upnorth]

This must be a wonderful dream for spammers...

 

[Tinm]

I always see that government departments are most lackluster in terms of security.

 

[jamescv7]

Usually those governments have no time to upgrade any mechanisms but rather to stick on traditional methods as it can be contradict to possible lost of jobs by employees once revisions changed.