A hacker claims to have stolen the personal data one billion people in China. He demands a ransom amounting to 10 bitcoins, or approximately 197,000 euros.
The hacker described his request in a post on the site Breach Forums under the pseudonym ChinaDan. He says he got his hands on more than 23 terabytes (TB) of personal data.
The biggest breach in history
If this hacker is telling the truth, this leak represents the biggest data theft the world has ever seen. However, it is currently impossible to determine whether ChinaDan is actually in possession of this data. Journalists were unable to identify or contact him directly, and police did not comment on the situation.
The information of nearly a billion Chinese is said to have leaked in a Shanghai Police database breach a few months ago. The data therefore contains 23 TB of names, addresses, places of birth, criminal records, telephone numbers and identity cards.
A recurring problem in China
The magnitude of the breach stirred the networks. ChinaDan’s post was relayed on Chinese networks Weibo and WeChat, and Binance Founder and CEO Zhao Changpeng issued the alert on Twitter, asking all platforms to increase their efforts to verify users, in order to avoid potential identity thefts to come.
In the eyes of the United States, China is home to the largest number of hackers and cybercriminals today. Similar breaches have appeared in the past. In 2016, the personal information of Communist Party members was leaked on the internet, and in 2020, hackers stole the information of more than 500 Weibo users. This year, files containing sensitive information about the persecution of the Uyghurs, an oppressed Muslim minority, have leaked. It therefore seems that the multiplication of these breaches is becoming a real problem for the government, which is trying to stifle these leaks as best they can.
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Source : Nikkei Asia
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