Advertising Feature

5 Most Damaging Online Hacks Of 2016

1. The United States Voter Database - 191,000,000

Mr Robot
Wikipedia.org

An independent computer security researcher uncovered a database of information on 191 million voters, found to be left exposed on the open Internet due to an incorrectly configured database. While voter data is genuinely considered public information and so not particularly sensitive, it would be a mammoth of a job to gather a database of this size. A trove such as this of all U.S. voter data could be considered extremely valuable for a number of reason, not least to criminals looking for lists of large numbers of targets for a variety of fraud schemes.

Regulations on protecting voter data vary from state to state, with many states imposing no restrictions at all. California, for example, requires that voter data be used for political purposes only and not be available to persons outside of the United States. The reasons for why this entry has come in at number one is that not only is the data set so vast, but it also incredibly concentrated. What is even more concerning is that the FBI still have no idea as to who controls the database, in fact to date bureau have declined to comment at all!

You can watch Mr Robot Season 2 over at Amazon Prime.

Sponsor
Sponsor

Prime Instant Video has tens of thousands of films and TV episodes available for unlimited streaming in the United Kingdom.