Government data breach affects six million Chileans

A hacker broke into a Chilean government server on Friday, and then posted personal information from over six million of the country's citizens.

The government appointed a special prosecutor on Monday, and said the data included names, identity card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mails, and academic records. It was taken from Education Ministry, military, and Electoral Service servers.

It also played down the significance of the leak, saying it was working to improve the protection of personal data.

Data from the Education Ministry apparently was used to track students who applied for public transportation discounts and university education; the military data was on 8,919 Chileans who had registered for the army; and the Electoral Service contained data on those registered to vote.

Officials said the data breach was less serious than first thought, and did not include any financial data. Steps are now being taken to ensure such break-ins don't happen elsewhere in Chilean government systems.

Leo Prieto, a Chilean technology site owner, discovered the data on the Internet and quickly contacted the authorities. It is not known when the data was first posted on the Internet, but it was taken down early Saturday.

It is still possible that the data may be mirrored somewhere else, and is unknown how many times the data may have been downloaded. Police currently have no suspects, and the data leak was signed by "Anonymous Coward."

Apparently, whoever did it was trying to make a point about Chile's poor network security. A message was left with the data, saying that the hack was to show what little Chile does to protect the data of its citizenry.