More than 190 million US voters might have had their personal data exposed

Yet again in 2015, US voter data is at risk of being compromised. Cybersecurity researcher Chris Vickery uncovered a publicly available database of 191 million voter records online earlier in Dec, CSO reports. The database is not protected by any security measures and reportedly remains live. Listed in the database is each voter’s full name, home address, mailing address, unique voter ID, state voter ID, gender, date of birth, phone number, date of registration, political affiliation, and voter history since 2000. Vickery didn’t specify where he found the vulnerable database and isn’t sure what company compiled it. CSO, Vickery, and an admin at DataBreaches.net reached out to multiple political data firms to see if any could claim ownership of the database. None did. The FBI and Internet Crime Complaint Center were also contacted, although the agencies didn’t follow up to confirm an investigation.

It isn’t clear how many states are impacted. If Vickery's numbers are accurate, the database would contain the majority of voter IDs in the United States -- even more than the total number of currently active registered voters. The US Census recorded 142.2 million registered voters in 2014, significantly less than the 191 million voter IDs Vickery claims to have uncovered, although deaths, state-to-state moves and duplicates may account for much of the discrepancy.