Hackers suspected of invading Chinese police database, peddling massive data of Chinese citizens online

An anonymous hacker or group of hackers is selling troves of data on Chinese citizens allegedly stolen from police databases, some of which have been verified as genuine. If confirmed, it would be one of the largest personal data breaches ever.

According to the hacker’s post on a popular cybercrime forum last Thursday to advertise the data for sale, the data cache allegedly includes billions of records stolen from the Shanghai police, including Data of 1 billion Chinese citizens. The post, which began circulating on social media over the weekend, priced the leaked data at 10 bitcoins (about $200,000).

Cybersecurity experts say the attack claimed by the hackers is astounding not only because of its alleged scale (if true, it would be one of the largest on record, but also the largest ever experienced by China) scale of known hacking attacks), but also because of the sensitivity of the information contained in this government database.

The hackers released a data sample they said included 750,000 records, including names, ID numbers, phone numbers, birthdates and places of birth, and detailed police information. Among them, there are cases of petty theft, Internet fraud, etc., as well as domestic violence police records. The earliest cases can be traced back to 1995, and the latest is 2019.