Israel’s political life has suffered a serious incident. Local media report that the personal information of all voters was posted on a website shortly before the elections for the renewal of the Israeli parliament.
Early reports indicate that the incident could be related to Elector, the mobile app used to record citizens’ votes in this country. This app had previously been noted for its constant security flaws, even since the Likud political party boosted its use to increase people’s participation in these election periods.
A day before the fourth national elections of the past two years, some local media outlets began reporting that a link directed directly to the platform’s database was being shared by various media outlets, mainly the Ghostbin anonymous publications platform.
On those responsible for the leak, a group identified as “Israeli Autumn” attributed the authorship of this incident, stating that they were forced to disclose this information due to the authorities’ little interest in fixing the voter failures. However, the alleged leakers did not add details to show that the information was actually extracted from the electoral application.
About the message posted on Ghostbin, it included encrypted links and codes to access two databases, one of which contains the full voter registration, including full names and voter number of the 6528565 people registered to participate in the election.
A separate database included full names, addresses, personal identification numbers, and other confidential details.
Israeli electoral law gives political parties access to these confidential records, although they are prohibited from sharing information with third parties. A flaw in the application’s web interface granted “administrator access” to the entire database, allowing anyone to access and copy the Israeli voter register, along with additional information collected by the Likud political party about hundreds of thousands of voters in Israel.
The first leak included the full name, gender, home address and, in many cases, cell phone number and responses to political surveys of 6.5 million Israeli adults. There was also a second leak of application information, due to poor protection of these resources.
Other political actors have also used Voters, but the Likud party was the only political organization to subcontract its voter data. To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
