An improperly secured database containing data on 150 million U.S. voters was accessed by a foreign server, according to a researcher.
Chris Vickery, a security researcher for MacKeeper, told The Hill on Wednesday he had discovered an online database of U.S. voter information left visible to the public. In a blog post Thursday, he writes that a log file shows the database had been accessed from a Serbian IP address.
{mosads}The voter files, including names, addresses, political preferences and opinions on social issues, had been compiled by L2, a political data brokerage. Vickery discovered the public-facing database on the Google cloud account of one of L2’s clients. Vickery then notified L2, which investigated and had the database taken down.
Vickery notes that there are innocent explanations for why a Serbian IP address may have accessed the database. An authorized account holder might have bounced a connection through a foreign server to provide an added level of security.
Alternatively, an unauthorized user may have accessed the account either from Serbia or routing a connection through Serbia.
L2 confirmed that the database had been left open to public view and said its client claimed its account had been hacked.
Vickery, however, believes it is more likely that this was a common user error in the database program, CouchDB. He said he regularly discovers similar incidents, including a public-facing database of 191 million U.S. voter records in December.
“These are powerful tools that are easy to misuse in a dangerous way if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Vickery told The Hill Wednesday.