Data of more than 172 million users of the popular Chinese social network Weibo has been leaked to the darknet.
According to the Chinese blockchain company Jinse, data from more than 172 Weibo accounts is for sale on the darknet for 0.177 BTCs. The leaked information includes usernames, numbers of messages sent on Weibo, numbers of fans and followers, gender and geographical location.
It should be noted passwords have not been disclosed, which is the reason why the amount hackers are asking for is relatively low.
Weibo security director Luo Shiyao reportedly confirmed the leak via the API in a message that he later deleted. He added the API has been shut down, that the incident has been reported to the authorities so that they can take the necessary measures and that the company is doing its best to identify the attackers.
Facebook suffered a similar incident last year, when in September data from 17% of Facebook's 2.4B users was leaked to the network. In that case, a database with information on 419 million Facebook accounts, including names, phone numbers, gender and country of residence, was available for download.
Due to the fact that Twitter and Facebook are censored in China, Weibo, which was founded in 2009, enjoys great popularity in the country.
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