Data Breach Sunday: Voter Information Exposed Online

April 6, 2008

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There’s something to be said for the convenience of doing things online. That something is that occasionally, it sloppy programming can lead to data breaches.

Thanks For The Help

Parts of the voter registration website for Pennsylvania have been disabled after it was found that information that some users submitted could be seen by others.

What was exposed? Nothing too major: names, addresses, driver’s license and the last 4 digits of Social Security Numbers.

The State had tried to be helpful by enabling voters-to-be to fill out their voter registration form online and then print it out. Unfortunately, that filled-out form became viewable to other people (oops!).

The forms are still available online but the type-in functionality has been disabled. Users will have to print out the form and fill it out by hand, much as our forefathers did.

Isolated Case?

This case got me thinking about all the sites out there that have this “helpful” form-filling functionality. I think going forward I will just print it out.

Source: WPSU

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