Oxford City Council reports election worker data breach (2001–2022)

Oxford City Council has been forced to temporarily shut down its main systems to investigate a cybersecurity incident that occurred over the weekend of June 7th-8th.

The Council detected an “unauthorized presence” within its networks, but criminals’ access to systems and databases was allegedly limited.

In order to investigate the breach, the Council temporarily shut down its main systems, which are now up and running again.

Some of the Council’s services were disrupted for approximately a week. While the Council’s email systems and other digital services are safe to use, the attackers accessed some historic data on legacy systems.

“We have now identified that people who worked on Oxford City Council-administered elections between 2001 and 2022, including poll station workers and ballot counters, may have had some personal details accessed. The majority of these people will be current or former Council officers,” the Oxford City Council’s statement on the cybersecurity incident reads.

The Council said it had contacted potentially affected people and was “taking steps to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.”