The personal information of nearly all Israeli voters has been exposed online a day before the general election, financial daily Calcalist reported Tuesday.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
According to the report, the information derived in the leak, which includes registered voters' addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth, dates back to a leak that took place in 2020.
The data was exposed following threats made against Elector Software, which operates the voter-prompting Elector app, used by Likud and several other parties.
According to Calcalist, hackers threatening to expose the information contacted the company directly and also threatened to leak the personal information on the company's CEO Tzur Yemin, and his family unless the app ceases operating.
"This is an extortion attempt and I have filed a complaint to the police," Tzur told the daily.
The Elector app sustained a cyberattack last week and hackers had threatened to expose Israel's full voter registry.
The hackers demanded Elector Software take the app down as it was not secure. There has been no indication that the app was breached in the current election cycle.
"Elector representatives said that the hackers concurrently sent direct messages to the company, with one of them saying, 'You don't have long left until information about your family is exposed too,'" the report said, adding that while the files the hackers released seem encrypted, the hackers have threatened to release the password unless the app was shut down. Did they so on Monday.
According to Calcalist, the password revealed files with the personal information of nearly all Israeli voters, including full names, phone numbers, addresses, assigned voting stations, gender, and email address, which appear to be updated as of 2020.
The report noted that as authorities have no way to prevent people from downloading the files, the information is likely to circulate online for weeks until they can force hosting sites to take it down.
"I deal with a product that provides a service to political parties at election time, with all the implications. I had no idea what the implications might be until I started providing the service to the Likud," Yemin told Calcalist.
"Funnily enough, the better the app works, the more frequent the threats become. It is legitimate to oppose the way the system works and I acknowledge that it is controversial, but it is legal and provides services to customers in the US, too. This is an attempt to harm an Israeli startup.:
A statement by Elector System said, "The voters' registry is handed out hundreds of times a year to many and various organizations and there is no way to determine where the data came from. The National Cyber Directorate even conducted an intrusive inspection of our company and stated that it was opposed to having the app taken offline since it is secure."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
