The 55 Million registered voters in the Philippines are at risk after hackers were able to breach and leaked the entire database of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). This is according to the Trend Micro Security report posted at their website. Last March 27, 2016, a hacker group was able to deface the COMELEC website and subsequently a second hacker group was able to breach the COMELEC database and leaked the same online.
In a press statement of the COMELEC, they mentioned that there is no cause for worry because there were no sensitive data that were compromised. Further, COMELEC said that they will be using a different website during the elections including the reporting of the results.
Unfortunately, this claim by the COMELEC is contradictory from the findings of Trend Micro, one of the worlds’ leading security company. According to Trend Micro, this may be the biggest government data breach in history. Based on their investigation the several Personal identifiable information were obtained and leaked. These pieces of information are the following:
- 1.3 Million records of Overseas Filipino voters including their passport numbers and expiry dates.
- 15.8 million fingerprint records
- List of Political candidates running for office since 2010
- Files of candidates running for election with the VOTESOBTAINED filename which is currently in NULL setting.
Finally, according to Trend Micro, the data breach left some personal information wide open. What does this mean for us?If our data is open we are susceptible to different kinds of security breaches like identity theft and phishing. Our data may also be used for blackmail and extortion.
This is a developing story…
