China is famous for aggressively banning everything crypto related. While regular users and investors are affected by this, dark web apparently is still untouchable. A hacker is selling private information of 130 million people obtained from Huazhu Hotels Group on the dark web for eight bitcoins thenextweb reports. Hotels group is one of the biggest in China and operates in 382 cities with 3800 hotels. The group uploaded all of its client database to GitHub by mistake and over 240 million records leaked to the hands of the hacker.
The database which is about 140GB in size, includes identities, bank accounts and contact details of the clients.
Authorities are investigating the incident and refusing to give a comment.
China is very vigilant about fighting crypto related crimes and fraudulent ICOs, blocking foreign crypto exchanges and even Alipay blocked several accounts. After several waves of bans, crypto exchanges and currencies are under a tight check. However, the dark web continues to operate globally.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
- Leaking client database with trusted information to a different platform is one of the last things a hotel can do, especially in this environment when China continuously warns against cyber crimes.
- It is an interesting detail that the hacker is trying to sell such a big volume of personal information for a mere eight bitcoins. Global corporations and even governmental intelligence agencies are always after such valuable data.