Russia or China might have taken down a Brexit registration website in an attempt to swing the vote

A pro-EU march against the Brexit vote in September 2016.

(Image credit: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

published 12 April 2017

A committee of British MPs has confirmed the "possibility that there was foreign interference" in the Brexit vote last year when hackers might have taken down a website designed to maximize voter participation. The committee's chairman said such an attack would be "entirely in character" with methods used in the past by Russia and China, although it did not directly assign blame to any one nation, The Independent writes.

The registration website crashed on June 7, 2016, just 100 minutes before the deadline to sign up. At the time, the government blamed the crash on demand — more than 500,000 people tried to register on the final day. Ultimately, the government extended the deadline to register but The Guardian notes that the crash "resulted in concerns that tens of thousands of people could have been disenfranchised."

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The report did note that "the U.S. and U.K. understanding of 'cyber' is predominantly technical and computer network-based. For example, Russia and China use a cognitive approach based on understanding of mass psychology and of how to exploit individuals." It added: "The implications of this different understanding of cyber-attack, as purely technical or as reaching beyond the digital to influence public opinion, for the interference in elections and referendums are clear."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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