Cybercriminals would have stolen the data of a billion Chinese to sell them for ten bitcoins

Digital thieves claim to have obtained a vast amount of information about a billion Chinese from a Shanghai police database, an attack that, if confirmed, could be one of the largest in history.

In a forum post Breach Forums last week, someone using the username ChinaDan offered sell almost 24 terabytes (24 TB) of data, including “information on one billion people” and “several billion case records” in exchange for 10 bitcoins, worth approximately $200,000.

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The data purportedly includes information from the Shanghai National Police database, and contain names, addresses, national identification numbers and mobile phone numbers, as well as case details. According to experts, the theft could have been carried out because one of the developers mistakenly included, in a technical text that he published on the web, the credentials authorizing access to the database.

Apparently, this exploit happened because the gov developer wrote a tech blog on CSDN and accidentally included the credentials.

1 billion records of private citizens’ data. ???? https://t.co/vPISm534Tn pic.twitter.com/FpMCGrpx08

— CZ ???? Binance (@cz_binance) July 4, 2022

A sample of the data seen by The Associated Press included names, dates of birth, ages and mobile phone numbers. One person was listed as being born in “2020″, with her age as “1″, suggesting that information about minors was included in the data that was mined.

The AP could not immediately verify the authenticity of the data samples. Shanghai police have not commented on the matter.

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The data leak initially sparked discussion on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, but censors have since blocked keyword searches for “Shanghai data leak.”

Experts said that the cyberattack, if confirmed, would be the largest in history.

Kendra Schaefer, a technology partner at research firm Trivium China, said in a tweet that it’s “hard to analyze the truth of the rumors, but I can confirm a file exists.”

Such data breaches are quite common, according to Michael Gazeley, CEO of Hong Kong-based security company Network Box.

“There are approximately 12 billion compromised accounts posted on the Dark Web right now. That is more than the total number of people in the world,” she said, adding that the majority of data leaks often come from the United States.

With information from La Nación de Argentina, AP and AFP

Source: Elcomercio

James

I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years and have written for various news outlets. I currently work as an author at 24 News Recorder, mostly covering entertainment news. I have a keen interest in the industry and enjoy writing about the latest news and gossip. I am also a member of the National Association of Journalists.