On Wednesday, Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers said a CVS-linked computer in one of the town offices was infected with data-stealing malware. He said that his office had been tipped off about the data breach by the Department of Homeland Security’s US-CERT team.
“I am in the process of assessing what, if any, information has been compromised”, Summers said. “I have taken immediate action to shut this computer down and disable the username and password assigned to the town clerk. I will keep the press updated with information as it is made available to me”, he added.
The CVR contains personal information on registered voters including names, addresses, dates of birth and, in some cases, driver’s license numbers. The system does not contain social security numbers, Summers told the Bangor Daily News. Maine has close to one million registered voters.
Summers said he strongly suspects that some information was accessed. “We just don’t know how much or the size” of the data breach, he told the newspaper.