Unidentified hackers said they stole information about a billion people in China as a result of a Shanghai police database breach. Experts call this attack the largest breach of cybersecurity in the history of the country.
The person or group that claimed the attack offered to sell more than 23TB of stolen data, including names, addresses, places of birth, national IDs, phone numbers, and criminal case information. The corresponding announcement was posted on cyberformum. For this database, an unknown hacker requested 10 bitcoins, which at the current rate is about $200,000.
Shanghai authorities have not publicly responded to the alleged hack. Representatives of the city’s police and China’s Cyberspace Administration, which is responsible for the country’s internet surveillance, did not respond to requests for comment.
The United States and other countries have repeatedly named China as one of the world’s largest sources of cybercrime. Oftentimes, Chinese hackers infiltrate the systems of Western countries and companies on behalf of Chinese agencies in order to find valuable data or intellectual property. However, internal leaks are rarely made public due to the lack of transparent disclosure mechanisms.
It is unclear how the alleged hackers were able to gain access to the Shanghai Police’s servers. One version, circulated among cybersecurity experts, claims that a third-party cloud infrastructure partner was involved in the hack. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Huawei Technologies Co. are among the largest external cloud services in China.
Source: bloomberg
