Sensitive personal information about over a billion people has apparently been leaked from a government agency and put up for sale on the dark web. The leaked information includes names, addresses, national ID numbers and mobile phone numbers, along with police and medical records.
The hackers claimed that the information has been leaked from the Shanghai National Police’s database and are offering it up for sale for 10 bitcoins, currently about $200,000.
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, warned that the information stolen could have an impact on hacker detection and prevention measures. He said, “It is important for all platforms to enhance their security measures in this area. Binance has already stepped-up verifications for users potentially affected.”
Zhao further added that the cryptocurrency firm’s threat intelligence detected 1 billion resident records for sale on the dark web, pointing towards a bug in a deployment by an unnamed government agency as the reason the data was able to be accessed.
