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Officials believe the unauthorized user accessed Hillsborough County voters’ social security or driver’s license numbers.
TAMPA, Fla. — An investigation determined the Hillsborough County Supervisors of Elections Office underwent an illegal data breach in early May, exposing more than 50,000 people’s voter information.
An unauthorized user appeared to have illegally accessed and copied files containing personal identification information, such as social security or driver’s license numbers, the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office said in a news release. The user was able to gather the information from files used to conduct voter registration list maintenance.
“Voter registration list maintenance is the state-mandated process by which the office continually reviews its voter roll to identify necessary updates,” a news release reads. “It’s important to note that the voter registration system and the ballot tabulation system, which have additional layers of security, were not accessed.”
The county believes around 58,000 people were impacted and those people will receive notification letters in the next week to make them aware that their personal information was illegally accessed.
The files were illegally accessed on May 3. At the time, Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer reassured residents that the unauthorized user didn’t have access to the voter registration system or the ballot tabulation system.
He further explained that the voter registration system had multiple layers of protection, monitoring any redundancy and said the server was not compromised during the breach.
The investigation into the unauthorized user accessing Hillsborough County voters’ information is ongoing. The Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office is working with federal, state and local law enforcement officials to address the criminal cyber activity.
