Hackers claim to have stolen records of 1 billion Chinese citizens from police


 A police officer in a protective suit checks commuters at a subway station after the lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak was lifted in Shanghai, China, June 2, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song/File photo.


SHANGHAI, July 4 (Reuters) - A hacker claims to have obtained troves of personal information on 1 billion Chinese citizens from Shanghai police in what tech experts say will be one of the largest data breaches in history.


The anonymous user, known as \"ChinaDan,\" posted on the hacker forum Breach Forums last week, offering to sell more than 23 terabytes of data for 10 bitcoins, or about $200,000.


“In 2022, the Shanghai National Police (SHGA) database was leaked. The database contains data and information of billions of Chinese citizens,” the post said.


\"The database contains information on 1 billion Chinese residents and billions of case records, including: name, address, place of birth, ID number, mobile phone number, all crime/case details.\".


Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the post.


The Shanghai government and police did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.


Reuters was also unable to reach ChinaDan, the self-proclaimed hacker, but the post was widely discussed on Chinese social media platforms Weibo and WeChat over the weekend, and many users feared it could be real.


The hashtag \"data breach\" on Weibo was blocked on Sunday afternoon.


Kendra Schaefer, head of technology policy research at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said in a post on Twitter that \"it's hard to analyze the truth from the rumor mill\".


Shaffer said it would be bad if the hackers claimed the video came from the Department of Public Safety, for \"many reasons.\"


\"Obviously, this would be one of the largest and most serious breaches in history,\" she said.


Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said Monday that the cryptocurrency exchange has stepped up user verification processes after the exchange's threat intelligence found records of 1 billion people in the Asian country being sold on the dark web.


He tweeted that the leak may have been due to \"a bug in the deployment of Elastic Search by the (government) agency,\" without specifying whether he was referring to the Shanghai police case. He did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.


The hackers' claims come as China has pledged to improve privacy protections for online users and has ordered its tech giant to ensure more secure storage after public complaints about mismanagement and abuse.


Last year, China passed new laws on how personal information and data generated within its borders are handled.


💌 Resources and References:

Reuters

Hackers claim to have stolen records of 1 billion Chinese citizens from police


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