Binance Steps Up Verifications for Users Potentially Affected by Data Breach Targeting 1B Chinese Citizens

Summary:

• Binance has stepped up the verification of users that have been potentially affected by the latest data breach.
• A hacker claims to have obtained the personal data of over 1 billion Chinese residents from the Shanghai police.
• The anonymous attacker seeks 10 Bitcoin on the dark web for 23 terabytes of data.

The crypto exchange of Binance has stepped up its verification of users potentially affected by a data breach involving over 1 billion citizens of the People’s Republic of China.

Binance to Step Up Verifications for Users Potentially Affected by the Data Breach.

Binance CEO, CZ, further stated on Twitter that the exchange’s threat intelligence had ‘detected 1 billion resident records for sell in the dark web, including name, address, national id, mobile, police and medical records from one Asian country.’

He explained that the data breach resulted from ‘a bug in an Elastic Search deployment by a government agency’ in the affected country.

As a result, the crypto exchange was stepping up verifications for users potentially affected. He also stressed the urgency of the matter and requested all ‘platforms to enhance their security measures.’

Hacker Wants 10 Bitcoin on the Dark Web for 23 Terabytes of Personal Information.

According to a report by Reuters, the data breach resulted from the Shanghai National Police database being leaked. Consequently, the hacker has the personal information of one billion citizens of China.

Additionally, the hacker is looking to sell the 23 terabytes of personal information on the dark web for 10 Bitcoins or roughly $200k. The hacker, using the name ‘ChinaDan’ on the dark web, also shared a post explaining how he got a hold of the information. He said:

In 2022, the Shanghai National Police (SHGA) database was leaked. This database contains many TB of data and information on Billions of Chinese citizen.

Databases contain information on 1 Billion Chinese national residents and several billion case records, including: name, address, birthplace, national ID number, mobile number, all crime/case details.

The Reuters report adds that they could not establish the post’s authenticity nor get a response from the Shanghai government and police department. The post by ChinaDan was also widely discussed on WeChat and Weibo over the weekend. If confirmed, it would be the most significant data breach in history.