A group of cybercriminals claims to have obtained a large one amount of information on a billion Chinese from a Shanghai police database. If confirmed, it would be one of the biggest hacks in history.

In a post on the hacking forum Breach Forums last week, someone used the username “China Dan” offered to sell nearly 24 terabytes (24 TB) of data, including “information on one billion people” and “several billion case records” in exchange for 10 Bitcoinwith an approximate value of $ 200,000.

The data allegedly includes information from the Shanghai National Police database, including names, addresses, national identification numbers and mobile phone numbers, as well as case details.

A sample of the data seen by the Associated Press included names, dates of birth, ages and mobile numbers. One person was listed as being born in “2020”, with her age as “1”, suggesting that information about minors was included in the data that was extracted.

The AP agency could not immediately verify the authenticity of the data samples. Shanghai police commented.

The data leak initially sparked discussions on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, but censorship has since done blocked keyword searches for “Data Leak to Shanghai”.

Experts said the cyber attack, if confirmed, would be the biggest in history.

Kendra Schaefer, technology partner of research firm Trivium China, said in a tweet that it is “difficult to analyze the truth of the rumors, but I can confirm it. there is a file”.

Such data breaches are quite common, according to Michael Gazeley, CEO of Hong Kong-based security firm Network Box.

“There are around 12 billion compromised accounts posted on the Dark Web right now. That’s more than the total number of people in the world, ” he said, adding that most data breaches often come from the United States.

With AP information

DD