Posted on 02/08/2018 2:16:36 PM PST by MeganC
Last month, a local California newspaper left more than 19 million voter records exposed online. Gizmodo confirmed this week that the records were compromised during an apparent ransomware attack.
The Sacramento Bee said in a statement that a firewall protecting its database was not restored during routine maintenance last month, leaving the 19,501,258 voter files publicly accessible. Additionally, the names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of 52,873 Sacramento Bee subscribers were compromised.
“We take this incident seriously and have begun efforts to notify each of the individuals on the contact list and to provide them resources to help guard against potential misuse of their personal contact information,” the paper said in a statement. “We are also working with the Secretary of State’s office to share with them the details of this intrusion.”
The Kromtech Security Center first discovered the data on January 31st and reviewed records from several of the exposed databases before determining who owned the data. Kromtech reached out immediately to multiple employees in the Bee’s IT department but received no response.
Gizmodo was notified about the breach on February 2nd and reached out to an executive editor at the Bee. Our email was not returned. After emailing two other members of the Bee’s editorial board on Monday—including Gary Wortel, the paper’s president and publisher—Gizmodo was contacted by a public relations director at The McClatchy Company, the Bee’s owner.
A McClatchy spokesperson said the executive editor first contacted by Gizmodo had left the paper day our email was sent.
McClatchy provided an initial statement on Tuesday, saying it had “strict protocols in place to ensure the security of our data” and that it was “aware of a ransomware attack on one of our servers that was located outside our core IT structure.” The spokesperson added: “We know that in databases apparently targeted, no personally identifiable information, as defined by the State of California, was involved.”
Below is a sample of a leaked voter record, with personal information redacted. It contains the voter’s name, phone number, address, gender, date of birth, political affiliation, among other election-related details.
(More at the link)
“I simply don’t know how it stays in business. I guess it is the Slimes pouring money in it is the only thing I can think of.”
Soros?
Last time I was asked to subscribe, I told him that I can get all the fake news I need for free.
What a bunch of SLUGS.
Famous last words from the Bee.."“We take this incident seriously."... yeah, they usually do AFTER the horse is out of the barn and their ineptness is fully exposed.
California has been completely corrupted, first under Texas transplant Willie Brown, then under home grown nut case Jerry Brown.
Somehow we need to undue all this corruption. It’ll take intervention from the Federal DOJ, but that won’t happen until it is itself cleaned out from the corruption of the Obama swamp creatures. Frustrating isn’t it?
How did we let our country get so far along this rocky road? My real fear is that it will take more than just simple reform and rooting out the corrupt government officials. I’m getting old and my eyesight isn’t what it once was, but things seem to shaping up along the lines of 1860.....The rats didn’t like Lincoln either and were sorta nuts about his Presidency too......
I’m pretty sure it’s available to any campaign or news organizations who pay for it. I worked on a campaign and ordered a copy for the legitimate purpose of knocking on doors on behalf of the candidate. IIRC it was the county that provided it, and there were some rules on dissemination, but not retention.
Yep, it was.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.