In China, a single-scale accident occurred in which 4 billion personal information was leaked, the largest ever.
Hong Kong’s Sungdo Daily, citing cyber news, reported on Sunday that a cyber news team recently discovered that up to 4 billion personal data worth 631 gigabytes (GB) were exposed without passwords. According to the report, wechatid_db, the largest leaked database, contains more than 805 million pieces of information. It is estimated that the data was collected on WeChat. The second largest one, “address_db,” contained 780 million pieces of actual address information.
The third bank included more than 630 million pieces of financial data, including credit card numbers, dates of birth, names, and phone numbers. The research team pointed out that by accessing only these three data sets, hackers can find out a particular user’s residence, spending habits, debt, and savings.
In addition, the database called “wechatinfo,” which contains about 577 million pieces of information, is likely to contain WeChat communication logs and user conversations.
In addition, the zfbkt_db containing 300 million pieces of data includes Alipay card and token information. The research team warned that hackers can try to activate unauthenticated accounts and steal user identification. “Databases have been carefully collected and managed,” the research team said. “It can be exploited to identify behavior, economic and social data of almost all Chinese citizens.”
EJ SONG
US ASIA JOURNAL
