Online poll hacked to give Chris Said advantage over contenders
An online poll which ran on the news portal www.independent.com.mt, asking people to give their preference as to who should be the next leader of the Nationalist Party was hacked sometime between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
The hack is the first-ever experienced by this portal, which goes to show just how hot the campaign for PN leader is turning out to be.
The two main contenders for the post, Adrian Delia and Chris Said stood neck to neck until Monday evening with just under five thousand votes each. However, during the early hours of yesterday morning the poll was hacked by over thirty thousand votes in a few seconds, giving around twenty thousand instant votes to Chris Said.
Followers of the news portal called in to voice their frustration at the sudden leap in the percentage that saw Chris Said going from 33% to 69% in the span of a few hours.
An investigation was immediately prompted by The Malta Independent who commissioned Deloitte Digital, the webmasters of The Malta Independent news portal, to take stock of the situation. It resulted that in a few minutes around thirty thousand clicks were generated from just two IP addresses coming from a residence, not a company.
Analysis of the data showed that while a few hundred votes were placed on Adrian Delia, Frank Portelli and Alex Perici Calascione, the bulk was given to Chris Said who instantly leapt in the poll. Experts in the field told this newsroom that it is physically impossible to generate so much traction in such a short period and the use of a hacking device must have been employed to do the job.
The Malta Independent immediately took action and blocked the two IP addresses from participating further in the poll and redressed the situation.
A police report was filed with the cyber crime unit and all the information related to the hack was handed over to the police.
It is not yet established who was behind the hack and the newspaper does not have the means to identify the hacker.