LONDON, Sept 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Phone numbers and other personal details
of senior ministers from Britain’s Conservative party were made public by an
app security flaw on Saturday, including those of top Brexiteers Michael Gove
and Boris Johnson.
Several top MPs reportedly received nuisance calls after their profiles
were accessed on the official mobile application for the annual party
conference, which kicks off this weekend.
The security breach saw members of the public able to enter the
politicians’ profiles using just their email address — a point of contact
widely available online — to view and edit the data stored within.
Former foreign secretary Johnson had his profile picture briefly swapped
for pornography and his job title changed to an profane insult, according to
several Twitter users.
Meanwhile Environment Secretary Gove’s picture was changed to one of media
tycoon Rupert Murdoch, his former employer when he was a journalist.
Among the first to report the flaw was Dawn Foster, a columnist for daily
The Guardian.
“The Tory conference app allows you to log in as other people and view
their contact details just with their email address, no emailed security
links, and post comments as them,” she wrote on Twitter, using a colloquial
name for the party.
“They’ve essentially made every journalist, politician and attendee’s
mobile number public. Fantastic.”
A Conservative party spokesperson apologised for the breach, saying the
technical issue had “been resolved and the app is now functioning securely”.
The party’s yearly gathering begins on Sunday in the city of Birmingham in
central England.
Britain’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), said
it was investigating the breach related to the app, which was developed by an
Australian firm called Crown Comms.
The opposition Labour Party said the blunder showed the ruling party could
not be trusted in matters of security.
“They can’t even build a conference app that keeps the data of their
members, MPs and others attending safe and secure,” said shadow cabinet
office minister Jon Trickett.