A hacker stole the data of a billion Chinese citizens

And hackerknown as ChinaDanannounced of having come into possession of the personal data of one billion Chinese citizens. If confirmed, the data breach carried out by ChinaDan can be regarded as one of the largest data breaches in history. Overall, ChinaDan would have come into possession of 23 TB of personal data of Chinese citizens.

The data of Chinese citizens is already for sale on the darkweb

Quickly, after the subtraction, ChinaDan has put the personal data of about one billion Chinese citizens up for sale on the darkweb. The huge amount of data is being sold at a price of 10 bitcoin currently equal to approx 200 thousand dollars. It should be noted that, at least for the moment, the Chinese government has not commented on the news but may already be working to identify the hacker. The breach, if confirmed, would be the most serious in China’s cyber history.

Darktrace’s comment

Toby Lewis, Global Head of Threat Analysis di Darktrace, comments the stealing of the data of a billion Chinese citizens: “When it comes to a data breach of this magnitude, it is almost impossible to verify the veracity of every element. However, based on a sample of data, early analyzes indicate that the breach is somehow credible. At the moment it is not yet clear whether the data comes from a single database, from connected or unrelated databases, which means that the number of interested citizens could be much lower than the number of elements actually leaked “

For what concern selling priceLewis points out: “Interesting is the very low selling price on the darkweb, with the data offered for just 10 bitcoins ($ 200,000), which suggests that the hacker may want to sell the data to more buyers without exclusivity, rather than to a single subject. The value of personal data also varies between citizens and largely relies on the ability to monetize data through identity theft and fraud, with nations like the UK and the US typically charging a higher price “

According to what has emerged in recent days, iThe Chinese government is allegedly trying to stem the discussion on the hacker attack which led to the stealing of Chinese user data. This element could be, according to Lewis, an indication: “of the veracity of the claims, but it could also be just an attempt by the Chinese government to crack down on potentially harmful news”