Massive ph data breach (COMLEC website)

A massive data breach seems to have left 55 million Philippine voters at much greater risk of identity fraud and more.

Security researchers warn that the entire database of the Philippines’ Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has been exposed in what appears to be the biggest government related data breach in history. The COMELEC website was compromised and defaced on 27 March by Anonymous Philippines before a second hacker group, LulzSec Pilipinas posted COMELEC’s entire database online days later.

All sorts of sensitive information – including passport information and fingerprint data – appears to have been included in the data dump. Some of the data was encrypted but there were some fields that were left wide open, according to a investigation by Trend Micro.

Based on our investigation, the data dumps include 1.3 million records of overseas Filipino voters, which included passport numbers and expiry dates. What is alarming is that this crucial data is just in plain text and accessible for everyone. Interestingly, we also found a whopping 15.8 million record of fingerprints and list of peoples running for office since the 2010 elections.
The data spill comes weeks before upcoming national elections in the Philippines, scheduled for 9 May. Anonymous Philippines warned COMELEC that it ought to harden the security of its vote-counting machines at the time the hacktivists defaced its website. Megabreach: 55 MILLION voters' details leaked in Philippines • The Register

 

Nope nor would I the way they run their websites here! Probably the worst anywhere.

 

If I were a Filipino I would be asking for a bit more information on exactly what was and wasn't encrypted. The potential damage that could be caused by this security breach could be massive. The fact that there is ANYONE out there that would choose to not encrypt sensitive data after ALL the major data breaches that have occurred in the past couple years is absolutely amazing. (This sh*t should be taken seriously, especially at the level COMLEC is operating on. They should know they are going to be a prime target. This kind of stuff is exactly why I make sure the forum's servers are secure/updated, user data encrypted and front-end software is updated. Note: I'm not saying that this site could never be hacked, it's certainly not "hack proof", but it has been secured to the best of my ability.....which appears to be higher than those running COMLEC.)

 

Just maybe 55m just don't care enough to ask questions. I should imagine 55m dont have regular access to the Internet if any the way the Internet is operated here,and how many read newspapers?

 

What is 55m?

 

No surprise.......