Republican polling firm’s database was hacked, exposing donor records
The data was stolen just after the 2016 election
A Republican phone polling firm has been hacked, exposing data on hundreds of thousands of Americans who submitted donations to political campaigns.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/republican-polling-firm-hacked-exposing-donor-records/
Victory Phones carries out polling on behalf of Republican candidates, which have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on predicting the outcomes of political campaigns. The company uses phone calling to conduct polls on massive scales and flood the Republican voter base with “get out to vote” phone calls. The company also allows campaigns to carry out political fundraising.
It’s thought that the stolen database primarily related to individual donations made to political campaigns, given the types of information found in the database.
According to public records, the company gave $207,602 to a campaign by Rand Paul (R-KY) and $79,646 to Martha Roby (R-AL). The company also gave $103,977 to the Republican Party of Michigan, where the company is located, and $64,229 to the Republican National Committee, among others.
The data contained 166,046 unique email addresses, according to Troy Hunt, who runs data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned, who was sent a copy of the database.
The data contains names, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, genders, and donation amounts.