Hacker Steals Data of Several Chinese Citizens and Sells it Online

A hacker has stolen the data of at least 750,000 Chinese citizens and is now selling it online. This includes essential personal information of the citizens, such as their names, phone numbers, national identity number, addresses, birth dates, and even police reports made by the individuals. These police reports contain all kinds of complaints, from traffic accidents and thefts to domestic violence and rape.

According to the AFP and cybersecurity professionals, this data is authentic. It is a 23-terabyte database that the hacker advertised on a forum last month. At least 4 out of 12 entries contain the personal details of individuals.

The hacker stated that it contains data of one billion Chinese citizens and is selling it for ten bitcoins, which is roughly $200,000. It is by far one of the most significant data breaches in the history of China. Citizens have complained about their data being leaked and random people adding them on WeChat.


The co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, Robert Potter, has said that the data comes from multiple sources such as facial recognition systems and census data. He has confirmed that the files have been hacked from the Alibaba Cloud server and stored by Shanghai Police. However, he does not verify the claim of the database containing information of 1 billion individuals.

China maintains a surveillance infrastructure containing a lot of data about its citizens for security. However, in the past few years, the country's awareness of data privacy has been increasing, which has led to the formation of stricter laws for protecting data.