A sensitive set of data is supposed to be handled with utmost care. However, in China, there has been an alleged human error on the side of an official department, and the personal data of 1 billion people from China was made public, which was actually supposed to be confidential information. As a result of this, hackers got their hands on this data from the Shanghai police database. Later on, the bits from the same hacked information were found to be placed on sale on the hidden part of the internet more commonly known as the dark web.
How Did It Happen?
Now the question arises what actually happened that gave hackers access to put 23 terabytes of personal citizens’ information on the dark web?
Basically, a blog was published by a certified official developer on the China Software Developer Network. In this blog, the developer had accidentally added some confidential credentials that helped hackers easily access the data including names, phone numbers, identification info, medical records and so much more that belonged to the people of China.
As per the CEO of Binance, Zhai Chanpang, their tech team had initially come across some personal data of Chinese citizens put up on sale on the dark web which led to the inquiry about the matter. He had given the news via a tweet that read “Apparently, this exploit happened because the gov developer wrote a tech blog on CSDN and accidentally included the credentials,”
In a matter of time, it was reported from several sources that 23 terabytes of personal data including names and so much more were seen to be available on the dark web to be sold for almost 10 bitcoins and it is considered as one of the biggest data breaches ever.
Dodging Human Errors – Need of The Hour
Since the information leaked was authentic, the official security system raises many questions that need to be addressed.
This incident of major data breach and many others that resulted similarly from human error have yet again highlighted the issue of human errors that can lead to major cyber issues. Evidently, no matter how efficient a human-based system gets, at some point, there are going to be minor and major human errors. There is a need to bring in such a systemic approach that would eliminate the doubt of human error when it comes to highly sensitive data because at least here a human error might not be affordable,
From Enabler to The Victim of Cybercrime
Being a preparator and enabler of cybercrime activities, China was not supposed to be the victim of the same criminal activity. Yet it did become one and lost so much of the personal data to the hackers who used it for dark web trading. However, with the amount of data that Chinese officials collect, it was bound to be breached at some point.
For now, the Shanghai police officers have not given any statement regarding the matter. Hence an official statement about it is yet to be made.
