Over 19 million California voter records leaked by Sacramento Bee, quickly held for ransom by hacker

[laserhaas]

Source: IBT UK

The Sacramento Bee accidentally leaked a database containing more than 19 million California voters' records online before it was promptly hijacked and locked down by opportunistic hackers for ransom. The local newspaper said in a statement that a firewall protecting the database was not restored by a third-party vendor during routine maintenance, leaving the records of 19,501,258 voters publicly exposed for two weeks.

The data, legally obtained by The Bee for reporting purposes, included voters' names, addresses, dates of birth, political affiliation and other voter details. A separate database that contained the names, home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of 53,000 current and former Sacramento Bee subscribers who signed up for the paper prior to 2017 was also compromised.

Read more: https://amp.ibtimes.co.uk/over-19-million-california-voter-records-leaked-by-sacramento-bee-quickly-held-ransom-by-hackers-1660334?__twitter_impression=true

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Link to tweet

[bucolic_frolic]

1. So there is active probing of security

and the miscreants know what to do when they succeed at their deeds

Sounds like an organized bunch to me

[yuiyoshida]

2. I wonder if any of them

have Russian accents?

[rpannier]

3. Nyet

Ivan is just John. And Efem is Jeffrey. And Natalia is Natalie. And Oksana is... Oksana. A fine ummmm... old... uhhh... Welsh name.

[Historic NY]

4. So will they (the newspaper) be held accountable for the damage and

the expenses of repairing the damage.

[ggmac0427]

5. How is it possible

How is it possible that a newspaper LEGALLY has access to a database containing voter records?

What possible "reporting purposes" could there be that allow access to a full database?

[PatSeg]

8. I'm wondering that too

I was a Sacramento Bee subscriber over a decade ago. I find this rather odd.

[backtoblue]

11. Good question nt

[magicarpet]

6. Info worth big bucks to select groups....

USA Election meddlers dream data cache,

* RNC

* Kris Kobach

* Cambridge Analytica

* Russian spy agencies

[PSPS]

7. Isn't this publicly-available data?

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Think about this. What keeps the hackers from changing just enough information

in the voters' records that they could be denied their right to vote? Like changing their affiliation or the spelling of their middle name or a number on their street address.

[backtoblue]

12. That's damn scary

[Stuart G]

10. Why wasn't this corrected immediately by the "third party vendor"...Well stupid is still stupid.

I wonder if the "third party vendor" had it's private information compromised.

Why is this not coming from a Sacramento source?....Why are we learning about this from the UK?
had to ask...........

[olddad56]

13. It is the Bee, can't really expect much from that newspaper these days.

[Akacia]

14. Curious here

how did the hackers hold the names etc. for ransom? Did they ask for money or what? This was not clear to me in the story. Pretty awful stuff having that kind of information in the wrong hands.