According ZATAZthem personal data of more than 140,000 inhabitants of the city of Lyon are in the wild and for sale on the dark web.
All for the modest sum of 250 dollars a lot!
A rare attack targets Lyon
This is an unusual method of action, in the sense that most attacks of this type resulting in the collection and sale of data on the Dark Web are more generally due to chance at the level of the targets. Here, according to revelations made by ZATAZ, it is a city and its inhabitants, Lyon, who are victims. The fact appears to be almost unprecedented.
In total, the personal data of more than 147,000 Lyonnaises and Lyonnais are for sale, at least since October 28, 2022. And for all that, the consideration requested, 250 dollars, is particularly low given the advantages for the future purchaser of this data set. It includes in particular the surnames, first names, date of birth, employer, professional and personal email addresses or even the telephone numbers of these individuals. Social media accounts with links, as well as 23,000 Gmail addresses, are also for sale according to ZATAZ.
Thus, more than a quarter of the intramural population of Lyon is concerned (!). As for the hacker’s motive, no one knows as it stands. Even if the city of Lyon and its metropolis are home to several head offices and cutting-edge companies, it is far from being the only one in this case.
Lyonnaises, Lyonnais, be attentive in the months to come
ZATAZ believes that the hacker acted through the scraping. This data would have been collected on LinkedIn through a bot, thus enriching the database afterwards before putting it on sale. Little other information is available on the pirate as it stands, except that, according to ZATAZ, he would have already been banned from several hacker forums without the causes having been revealed. In fact, the data of several important personalities of the city, potentially deputies, appear in the lot, since the mention “National Assembly” has been spotted several times.
While waiting for an investigation to potentially confuse the hacker, be particularly attentive in the coming months if you live and work in Lyon and its surroundings. Indeed, depending on who obtains this data, malicious phishing campaigns could notably be launched.
Sources: ZATAZ, Lyon Mag
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