UK Electoral Commission hacked by 'hostile actors'

"Hostile actors" targeted Britain's Electoral Commission in a complex cyber incident that involved hackers accessing internal emails and copies of voter data, the commission said on Tuesday.

"Hostile actors" targeted Britain's Electoral Commission in a complex cyber incident that involved hackers accessing internal emails and copies of voter data, the commission said on Tuesday. The Electoral Commission, the independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance, said the incident came to light last year.

It did not provide further detail on the hostile actors but said the incident showed Britain's democratic institutions remained a target for hackers. They had access to servers that held its email, control systems, and copies of electoral registers. "We know which systems were accessible to the hostile actors, but are not able to know conclusively what files may or may not have been accessed," Electoral Commission Chief Executive Shaun McNally said in a statement.

"The successful attack ... highlights that organisations involved in elections remain a target, and need to remain vigilant to the risks to processes around our elections." Much of the data in the registers - including the name and address of those registered to vote between 2014 and 2022 and the names of overseas voters - was already in the public domain, the commission added.

Hackers had first accessed the Electoral Commission's systems in August 2021 and the incident was first identified in October 2022, the commission said. Britain's data watchdog was notified of the incident and is investigating.

The commission has worked with Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and external experts to investigate the incident and had since made improvements to the security of its IT systems, it said. "We provided the Electoral Commission with expert advice and support to aid their recovery," an NCSC spokesperson said.

"Defending the UK’s democratic processes is a priority for the NCSC and we provide a range of guidance to help strengthen the cyber resilience of our electoral systems."

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