DC elections agency warns entire voting roll may have been stolen

The US Capital's predetermination agency says a ransomware unit mightiness person stolen its full elector roll, which includes nan individual accusation of each registered voters successful nan District of Columbia.

The DC Board of Elections (DCBOE) first became alert of nan intrusion connected October 5, erstwhile a criminal pack called RansomVC claimed to person surgery into a server belonging to DataNet Systems, nan agency's website hosting provider, and accessed 600,000 items of US elector information including DC elector records.

According to DCBOE, nary of its ain soul databases aliases servers were accessed, but important accusation was connected DataNet's servers.

In a Friday update posted connected its website, nan voting agency said nan break-in now looks worse than it primitively thought. During a regular check-in telephone pinch DataNet Systems, DCBOE learned - 15 days aft nan first onslaught - that nan compromised server "did incorporate a transcript of nan DCBOE's elector roll."

"DataNet Systems confirmed that bad actors whitethorn person had entree to nan afloat elector rotation which includes individual identifiable accusation (PII) including partial societal information numbers, driver's licence numbers, dates of birth, and interaction accusation specified arsenic telephone numbers and email addresses," nan agency added.

It said nan work supplier couldn't decidedly opportunity "if aliases when" nan incident occurred, aliases "how many, if any, elector records were accessed." The elections agency says it will now interaction each registered voters, and it has besides hired Mandiant to assistance pinch nan incident response.

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"This remains an progressive and unfastened investigation," nan connection said. "DCBOE will merchandise its afloat findings erstwhile they are available." The agency didn't person immoderate further updates arsenic of Monday morning, DCBOE spokesperson, Sarah Winn Graham, told The Register.

DCBOE is besides moving pinch rule enforcement and national authorities agencies including nan FBI, nan Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, US Department of Homeland Security, and nan Office of nan Chief Technology Officer to analyse nan breach.

Upon learning of nan incident successful early October, nan elections agency took down its website and started scanning its database, server and IT networks for vulnerabilities.

While nan website remains down, pinch a connection telling visitors it is undergoing maintenance, "voter registration remains open, active, and unafraid for District of Columbia residents," according to DCBOE.

RansomVC, aka Ransomed.vc, is simply a caller extortion unit that emerged successful September and claimed to person breached Sony and Japanese compartment bearer NTT Docomo. ®