A voting machine supplier had nearly 2 million voter data records in the cloud and the files required no password, so anyone could see it and download it.
And that is how it was discovered: a security researcher found and downloaded the backup that had all kinds of identifying information.
"The voter data in the back-up files included about 1.8 million names, addresses, dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers, and in some cases, driver's license and state ID numbers," says ES&S, Elections System & Software. The company posted about the leaked voter data incident on its blog.
All of the data is believed to be for voters in Illinois.
The company says it is unsure how long the records were exposed and it is now doing a forensic analyses of the AWS server which housed the files.
This incident reminds the SecureWorld team of a topic that is often discussed at our regional SecureWorld conferences. An important step in securing your data is figuring out where it is in the first place.