Russian hackers steal data on 54 million Turks

Some 54 million Turkish citizens or roughly 70 percent of the nation's population may have had personal information compromised by Russian hackers, according to a report.

The information included names, addresses and citizen ID numbers. Political parties and election committees in Turkey share voter information and in some cases the information was uploaded to vulnerable party websites that were not protected by anti-virus.

“In two hours hackers downloaded all the information,” Bekir Ağırdır, the general manager of Istanbul-based KONDA Research and Consultancy, said Monday.

The incident comes at a bad time, according to the report, which points out that public and private sectors in Turkey are feeling the heat for failing to protect personal data.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com