The Electoral Commission, the UK’s electoral watchdog, was targeted in a ‘complex cyber-attack’ which saw “hostile actors” gain access to electoral register copies and private voter information, including emails, names, and addresses.
The hack, which took place in August 2021 but was not discovered until October 2022, was stymied only by the fact that the UK still has paper-based electoral processes.
“The UK’s democratic process is significantly dispersed and key aspects of it remain based on paper documentation and counting,” stated the Electoral Commission’s chief executive Shaun McNally.
“This means it would be very hard to use a cyber-attack to influence the process. Nevertheless, the successful attack on the Electoral Commission highlights that organisations involved in elections remain a target,” McNally added.
The UK has taken a number of steps to ensure the security and integrity of its elections, including introducing voter identification requirements for the most recent local elections this year. The decision was taken by government ministers as “a reasonable and proportionate way to confirm that someone is who they say they are when voting, thus stamping out the potential for voter fraud to take place.”
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