Chinadan – Breach of 1 Billion Chinese Citizens Scrutinized

An anonymous hacker has claimed that he has stolen the PII of 1 billion Chinese citizens, one of the biggest data breaches in history.

Named as ChinaDan on hacking forums said they obtained the information from a leaked Shanghai National Police database that has the PII like name, address, birthplace, national ID number, mobile number, all crime/case details.

ChinaDan used the hacker forum to offer more than 23TB of data from the alleged breach for the price of 10 bitcoin, equivalent to around $200,000. If true then it is one of the biggest data breach ever.

This appears to cause significant alarm and discussion on the China social media platforms Weibo and WeChat.

Organizations and government entities carry a responsibility to consumers and civilians alike to guard their most valuable information at all cost. Personal information that does not change as easily as a credit card or bank account number drives a high price on the Dark Web.

Last year, China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) came into effect, setting out how personal data generated within its borders should be managed.