Fears Brexit votes hacked
RUSSIAN hackers may have interfered with the Brexit referendum by mounting a cyber attack that crashed a key voter registration website in the run-up to the EU vote.
An investigation by MPs has warned that the crash of the official voter registration website on June 7 last year just hours before the deadline for people to sign up to vote in the referendum could have been caused by a foreign power.
The Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said they were deeply concerned about the allegations of foreign interference in last year’s Brexit vote.
The warning comes amid claims Russia has sought to interfere in foreign elections, including last year’s US presidential election.
The Government had to rush through emergency regulations extending the deadline after the crash.
At the time, ministers said the crash was the result of an unprecedented spike in demand, with more than 500,000 people trying to register on the last day.
But the committee said the crash had indications of being a distributed denial of service attack using so-called botnets controlled by hackers to overwhelm the site.
The committee noted Russia and China use an approach to cyber attacks based on an understanding of how to exploit individuals. They said: “We are deeply concerned about allegations about foreign interference.”
They were also critical of the way David Cameron held the referendum to “call the bluff” of his critics.