More than 1 million passports of Russian citizens who voted in the last constitutional elections have been for sale on the darknet since the beginning of July.
The information was released through local media, which reported the incident after conducting an investigation to verify the facts. Meduza, a Russian portal for analysis and investigative reporting, revealed that thousands of passports of citizens of Moscow and Nizhniy, who participated in the last constitutional elections through the "blockchain" online voting system Exonum, are for sale on the darknet.
In addition to revealing that the personal information of 1.190.726 citizens is virtually in the public domain, Meduza's report also reveals that approximately 97 citizens are registered in the system twice and that many of these voted both electronically and at physical voting stations. The portal's investigation also indicates that between 4000 and 6000 passports registered for the electoral process are invalid and have been removed from the database.
Moreover, Kommersant, another major media outlet in the country, reported that hackers have so far sold approximately 30 lines of the leaked document containing citizens' information. According to the outlet, each of these lines is worth approximately between $000 and $1 on the darknet, a very low but competitive price in a market with high demand.
It may interest you: Several countries implement blockchain technology to establish a fair and transparent electronic voting system
How were citizens' documents leaked?
Exonum, the electronic voting system used by the government during constitutional votes, is based on technology blockchain. A technology that, as we all know, is completely efficient, safe, transparent and reliable. Now, with all these and many other incredible qualities, How can a blockchain-based system allow data leakage?
Meduza's investigation notes that a flaw in the government's web portal allowed the database of registered citizens to be available for several hours on the website, allowing hackers to easily download it and then put it up for sale on the dark web.
“The archive is located on one of the state websites. At the same time, access to the archive was free: on July 1, at least from 9:00 to 12:00 Moscow time, anyone could download it.”
To check, Meduza gained access to the file degvoter.exe already the database db.sqlite via the link opened on the government website. These two files contained the encrypted data of citizens who voted online during the elections. After gaining access, Meduza decoded the file and accessed the stored information.
Meduza also notes that the database db.sqlite was not protected by any security password. And although the passport numbers were encrypted as a sequence of hash, the process to decipher them was really easy, according to the portal.
Artem Kostyrko, Head of the Department of Territorial Management and Development of Smart Projects of the Moscow Government, denied the data leak, pointing out that the voter database was not in the public domain. However, local media confirm the opposite, even proving the veracity and authenticity of the data. Meanwhile, several analysts claim that such failures are becoming more frequent in state databases or IT resources, as the developers of these resources do not pay due attention to information security, believing that the stored data is of no importance or interest to hackers and intruders.
Repercussions and possible consequences of the leak of data and information on the darknet
Researchers estimate that citizens' data and personal information cannot be used on the darknet for purposes that seriously compromise the identity of citizens, since passport numbers themselves are of little use to data buyers. On the other hand, it is estimated that this information will allow buyers to obtain private data from victims. For example, with document numbers, information buyers can access the names of victims, their dates of birth, and obtain information such as citizens' credit history to get an idea of their financial movements. Likewise, buyers can access the addresses of residence or companies where the affected citizens work, something that can lead to cases of extortion or kidnapping.
Similarly, access to information such as the email addresses of affected citizens allows hackers or buyers of the database to send emails with false promotions to deceive users, or even carry out attacks. Phishing o social engineering, so that unsuspecting citizens send their banking information, private keys or other information of interest to the attackers.
Kommersant obtained a statement from the seller of the data, which claimed that because the database is completely new, there is a high demand for it, even though there is nothing extraordinary about the data.
Learn with Bit2Me Academy: How to protect yourself from phishing attacks and avoid online scams?
Other cases of information leaks in Russia
In 2019, the Duma elections in Moscow also took place electronically and during this process election data was also leaked, revealing the vote cast by each citizenThe hackers managed to decrypt the files and reveal who each citizen who participated in the lessons voted for, although the government repeatedly denied this event, claiming that it was false information.
Continue reading: Coca-Cola integrates blockchain technology to ensure transparency in the supply chain
