A security flaw in a mobile app has exposed the personal data of every eligible voter in Israel. The app, called Elector App is used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to communicate with voters.
The leak is also raising concerns about identity theft and electoral manipulation. This is happening close to the country’s national election scheduled for March 2020.
The flaw in the Elector App revealed the names, addresses, and identity card numbers for each one of Israel’s over 6 million voters. Worst of all, it did so in such a simple way that it didn’t require any advanced technical knowledge to access critical voter information.
“It wasn’t very technical,” said software developer Ran Bar-Zik, who revealed the flaw in the Haaretz newspaper on 9th February 2020 after it was fixed. “It’s amazing. It’s a very simple, very stupid hack. To call it a hack is an insult to professional hackers,” He finished.
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Bar-Zik said Right-clicking on the Elector App’s home page and choosing “view source” would reveal the source code. This, in turn, also revealed the logins of system administrators, allowing anyone to access and download the voter registry.
Elector App anonymous tip
Haaretz Newspaper says the information came via an anonymous tip. The anonymous tipper also provided Haaretz newspaper with personal details of powerful people in Israel.
It remains unknown how many people were able to access the data and downloaded it. However, the application has users in other countries like the United States, China, Russia, and Moldova.
The firm that developed the Elector App, Feed-b, said that it has now fixed the floor. It said the vulnerability is a “one-off incident”. Tight security is important at this time because many people provide details online.
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