Dark Web criminal selling over 40 million voter records from 9 US states for under $5

A dark web vendor is reportedly selling over 40 million US voter records from nine states in an underground market called RaidForums. The data being sold allegedly includes full names, addresses, voter IDs, voter status and party affiliations.

A cybercriminal, going by the pseudonym "Logan" has also allegedly traded some of the data in exchange for stolen credit card data and login credentials. The data up for sale reportedly comes from Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Washington State. A chunk of the data has also allegedly been sold for less than $5 (£3.80).

According to Jonathan Tomek, director of threat research at LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, Logan allegedly claims to also be in possession of voter records from an additional 20-25 US states, Dark Reading reported. According to LookingGlass, the dark web criminal's primary motive is likely not financial, as over the past few days, over 10 million voter records from Ohio and Arkansas were sold for a mere $4.

The dark web vendor allegedly accumulated the voter records via a combination of social engineering techniques as well as through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

"Logan is not affiliated with any group to our knowledge," Tomek said. "We believe he is acting alone. I can say he is over 18, travels a bit internationally, and works for a cybersecurity company."

It is still unclear as to how many people may already have purchased the voter registration data up for sale.

"We do know he is actively trading this information for other stolen items such as credit cards and login credentials," Tomek added. "The combination of the voter information plus the other data has potential to be very bad since the voter data contains birthday, home address, email, and full name."

The dark web sale comes amid the efforts of the administration of US President Donald Trump to gain access to publicly available voter data registration data from every US state. So far, 24 states have agreed to hand over voter records. However, privacy advocates have raised concerns about the move. The American Civil Liberties Union has since filed a lawsuit againstthe election commission over fears of possible voter suppression.