The breach could be the biggest-yet hack of government-held data, according to Trend Micro. A breach of the Philippines’ Commission on Elections (Comelec) affecting about 55 million people could be the largest hack of government-held data ever, according to security specialists. Government representatives have downplayed the seriousness of the breach, which took place late last month, but IT security firm Trend Micro said its analysis of the exposed data found that it included sensitive information such as passport numbers and fingerprint records. “Every registered voter in the Philippines is now susceptible to fraud and other risks,” Trend said in an advisory. “With 55 million registered voters in the Philippines, this leak may turn out as the biggest government related data breach in history.”
Comelec’s website was defaced on 27 March by the Philippines branch of the Anonymous hacker group, which left a message accusing the government of poor security ahead of upcoming elections on 9 May.
Later on the same day a different but linked group, LulzSec Pilipinas, posted an online link to what it claimed was Comelec’s entire database, a 338 GB file containing 75.3 million individual entries. Just over 54 million of those entries would seem to correspond to the Philippines’ 54.36 million registered voters, according to Trend.
Full Article: Hackers Expose Massive Philippines Voter Database.