17 crore citizens' data leaked, personal details sold at ₹2,000: Telangana Cops

Kamleshwar Shingenavar, deputy commissioner of police (crimes), said the private organisations were allegedly collecting data both with consent and without knowledge of the individuals.

Updated on: Mar 26, 2023, 17:57:37 IST

By HT News Desk | Edited by Aryan Prakash

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The Cyberabad Police in Telangana have recently busted a gang involved in the data theft and sale of sensitive information of government and important organisations. The arrested seven members of the gang allegedly stole details of 2.55 lakh defence personnel and 16.8 crore citizens of India, PTI reported.

According to the police, the arrested accused sold data of 50,000 citizens for as low as ₹2,000. Cyberabad Police commissioner M Stephen Raveendra was quoted by PTI as saying that the accused sold more than 140 categories of data including defence personnel details, citizens' mobile numbers and contact details of NEET students.

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Explaining the modus operandi, the police said that whenever any individual called the toll free numbers of service providers for any sector, the query was listed and sent to the category of service providers. The fraudsters contacted the clients and sent them samples. In case the client agreed to purchase the services, he/she made the payment and are provided the data. According to the police, the accused collected data leaked from different organisations and sold the data to cybercriminals.

Kamleshwar Shingenavar, deputy commissioner of police (crimes), said the private organisations were allegedly collecting data both with consent and without knowledge of the individuals. They were selling information in categories including energy sector, PAN card data, demat accounts, student databases, women databases, WhatsApp and Facebook users etc.

The Cyberabad top cop said that the sensitive data of defence personnel including ranks, email addresses, place of posting etc was found from the accused, adding that such data could be used for espionage, impersonation and committing serious offences threatening national security.

According to the police, at least 1.2 crore WhatsApp users and 17 lakh Facebook users were also targeted in the data theft.

(With PTI inputs)

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