C. Custer · · 2 min readChinese Police Bust Web Store Selling Millions of Stolen Identities
via naacal.blogspot.com
And what’s more, they apparently offered some shockingly detailed data on some people. In addition to the usuals — name, address, D.O.B., hometown, etc. — the shop also had information about things as obscure as people’s motor vehicle insurance expiration dates. Their lists included private data on a number of well-known Chinese businessmen, although the People’s Daily report doesn’t reveal who.
The shop, which was headquartered in a Fengtai, Beijing office building, was apparently selling data for 0.1 RMB (about $0.01) per person. Customers who bought in bulk were offered bulk discounts or even extra identities provided for free.
The data was stored on a locked hard drive, which the owner of the office, Mr. Zhao (his first name wasn’t revealed), assured police had been left there by “a friend.” He “forgot to delete it” and “didn’t know what was on it.” Suuuuure, buddy. Anyway, the cops hacked it and — surprise! — found millions of people’s personal information. To check it, one of the officers searched for his own cell phone number and discovered that the database contained his name, age, address, and even information about his car!
Eventually Zhao admitted that he’d gotten into the identity-selling game in 2007 after a stranger told him about it online and convinced him it was an easy way to make a lot of money. He got hooked into some QQ groups for identity thieves, and pretty soon he was making money.
Of course, that cash isn’t going to do him much good in the big house, which is where he’s going now. Still, if this one guy could amass data on millions of people in just a few years, we shudder to think about just how much personal information is still out there in the hands of people like Zhao who haven’t yet been caught.
[People’s Daily via Sina Tech]
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