The United Kingdom’s Electoral Commission recently announced that a cyberattack by ‘hostile actors’ had exposed the data of individuals registered on the country’s electoral roll for the period between 2014 and 2022.
The entity released a statement detailing that it detected suspicious activity in October 2022, and upon further investigation, discovered that hackers gained access to its systems for the first time in August 2021.
The attackers gained access to reference copies of electoral records, which at the time of the cyberattack contained the names and addresses of all UK citizens registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, as well as the names of voters. Registered abroad, the Electoral Commission said.
Sean McNally, executive director of the agency, lamented that there were not enough security measures in place to prevent this cyberattack. In addition, he noted that since the discovery of the incident, they have implemented important measures in cooperation with experts to enhance the cybersecurity, resilience, and reliability of their technology systems.
McNally also stressed that the UK’s democratic process is highly decentralized, with critical aspects still relying on paper documentation and manual recounts, making it extremely difficult to use a cyberattack to influence the outcome of an election.
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