Board of Elections: Report of Breach Exaggerated

Jim Allen says data for about 1,200 voters -- not 1.7 million -- was exposed

A Chicago Board of Election spokesman confirmed Tuesday that personal information for more than 1,000 people had been exposed online, but he denied a report from a security firm that the breach affected more than one million voters.

Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, said the city's website -- ChicagoElections.com -- was immediately taken out of service after learning that voter information had been revealed.

Chicago-based Forensicon released a report earlier in the afternoon indicating a "massive security breach" encompassing more than 1.7 million registered voters.

"A treasure trove of sensitive voter information such as driver’s license numbers, cell phone numbers, emails, dates of birth and more was revealed," Forensicon’s President, Lee Neubecker, wrote in a post on the company website.

While Allen classified the firm's claim as a publicity stunt, he acknowledged that some voter information was moved to a temporary site after traffic to the site on Election Day crashed the service. That temporary site was not password-protected.

Allen said the most recent release of information was nothing like the breach in 2006, when information for hundreds of thousands of voters was made available.

The roughly 1,200 people affected by the most recent incident will be notified, Allen said.

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