While hacks might happen every day, it's quite rare to find a billion worth of data being stolen, especially from a police database. A hacker (or group of hackers), however, might have just pulled off one of the greatest heists in history when it comes to data, should their claims be true.
Data on a Billion of Chinese Citizens were Allegedly Stolen from the Shanghai Police Database
According to the story by Engadget, a hacker, or maybe even a group of hackers, claims that they have actually been able to steal data on a billion Chinese citizens coming from the database of the official Shanghai police.
As per the report of Bloomberg, the hacker allegedly tried to sell 23 terabytes of data for the price of just 10 Bitcoin or around $198,000 during the time of the report. This translates to less than a cent per report.
Stolen Data Include Names, Birthplaces, Addresses, National IDs, and Phone Numbers
The Wall Street Journal reports that the data includes names, birthplaces, addresses, national IDs, and even phone numbers of people. The publication reports that the hacker provided a sample of the data.
The data sample even included crime reports coming as far bask as 1995. Reporters also confirmed the legitimacy of some of the data by actually calling in the people who had their numbers listed on the sample database.
Alibaba Says They are Investigating the Matter of Hand After Fingers Point Towards Aliyun Being the Vulnerability
It is not yet clear how the hacker was able to infiltrate the police database. There have also been suggestions that in order for the hackers to gain the information, they gained access through an Alibaba cloud computing company known as Aliyun.
Aliyun is reportedly the host of the database. Alibaba also gave a comment saying they are already investigating the matter at hand.
Cybersecurity Experts Say the Incident is Called the 'Biggest Cybersecurity Breach in China's History'
Although the true scope of the whole leak remains unknown, cybersecurity experts have called the incident the "biggest cybersecurity breach in China's history." The WSJ stated that a post regarding the data was found on a popular online cybercrime forum.
According to Channel News Asia, an anonymous Internet user that was identified as ChinaDan posted on Breach Forums, a hacker forum, regarding the stolen data with the attempt to sell it for 10 Bitcoins.
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Shanghai Government and Police Department Didn't Give Response to a REquest for a Comment
As per the report, Reuters, however, were not able to verify how authentic the post was. The Shanghai government and police department also did not give a response when asked for a comment on Monday.
Although not authenticated, the post was widely being discussed with Weibo and WeChat social media platforms over the course of the weekend, which posed a lot of worry for users as to whether the claims were true or not.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian B.
