In China, the data of more than a billion people became publicly available.
CNN writes about it.
Itʼs a database that remained unsecured and publicly available for over a year, until an anonymous user on a hacking forum offered to sell the data. Cybersecurity experts believe the leak could be one of the biggest ever, underscoring the risks of collecting and storing vast amounts of sensitive personal data online, especially in a country where the government has broad and uncontrolled access to such data.
According to LeakIX, the data became publicly available through an unsecured backdoor link — a shortcut to a web address that offers unlimited access to anyone who knows about it.
Access to the database, which does not require a password, was closed after an anonymous user announced last Thursday that he was willing to sell more than 23 terabytes of data for 10 bitcoins — roughly $200,000.
The user claimed that the database was compiled by the Shanghai police and that it contained sensitive information about one billion Chinese citizens, including their names, addresses, mobile phone numbers, social security numbers, age and place of birth, and billions of phone call records made by the police.
The seller also claimed that the unsecured database was hosted on Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. When contacted by CNN for comment on Monday, Alibaba informed that it was "looking into the matter".
It is unclear how many people accessed or downloaded the database while it remained publicly available on the Internet.