Online referendum on universal suffrage CE election target of cyber-attack

The New Macau Association (NMA) has revealed today that the online referendum launched for local residents to express if they would like for the Macau Chief Executive (CE) to be elected through universal suffrage was the target of a cyber-attack.

In ordert to protest against the current limited CE electoral process, the political organization launched this initiative on August 11 with the online referendum intended to last until the day of this year’s CE election on August 25.

The association said that the cyber-attack incident took place on Thursday, with the intent to interfere with the service that delivers verification messages to the participants in the vote.

“Most participants would have no problem voting yesterday. However, for those who could not receive a verification message yesterday or in the past few days, please cast a ballot,” the association announced.

Still, NMA stressed that the attack had no impact on the security of the servers of the association and that the integrity and security of the vote data were unaffected.

Upon the launch of the referendum, the association stated voters would only be asked for their phone number instead of asking for other personal data or ID number, so as to reduce privacy breach risks.

“The technical representatives of the NMA responded to and mitigated the attack within two hours after the attack begun. The attack has been blocked and the effect has been contained,” the association said.