Hackers Divulge Information on Millions of Turks
April 5, 2016
Shah Sheikh (1294 articles)
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Hackers Divulge Information on Millions of Turks

Hackers have posted a database online that appears to contain the personal information of nearly 50 million Turkish citizens in what is one of the largest public leaks of its kind.

The Associated Press on Monday was able to partially verify the authenticity of the leak by running 10 nonpublic Turkish ID numbers against names contained in the dump. Eight were a match.

The leaked database contains 49,611,709 entries and divulged considerable private information, putting people at risk of identity theft and fraud. Entries include data such as national ID numbers, addresses, birth dates and parents’ names.

The hackers spotlighted the information for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his predecessor Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The leak came with the message: “Who would have imagined that backwards ideologies, cronyism and rising religious extremism in Turkey would lead to a crumbling and vulnerable technical infrastructure?”

In a message on the lessons to be learned by Turkey, the hackers said: “Bit shifting isn’t encryption.”

The hackers also dedicated their stunt to the U.S. saying: “We really shouldn’t elect [Donald] Trump, that guy sounds like he knows even less about running a country than Erdogan does.”

The site appears to be hosted by an Icelandic group that specializes in divulging information, using servers in Romania.

In an era in which hackers frequently gain access to sensitive information, the Turkish government isn’t alone in facing a major breach.

Among the most serious recent incidents, the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management revealed in April 2015 that hackers gained access to the personal information of more than 22 million U.S. federal employees, retirees, contractors and others, and millions of sensitive and classified documents.

U.S. officials believe a Chinese espionage operation infiltrated the OPM’s records.

Source | WSJ