Hacker claims they stole police data on a billion Chinese citizens

A group of hackers claim to have stolen data on a billion Chinese citizens. The hacker is trying to sell 23 terabytes of data for just over $200,000 at the time of writing, according to the report.

The data has names, addresses, birthplaces and national IDs. The hacker gave a sample of the data, which included crime reports dating back to 1995. Reporters called people whose numbers were listed to confirm that the data was legit.

There are suggestions that the hacker gained access to the police database via a cloud computing company called Aliyun. The matter is being investigated by the company.

The extent of the leak is not known. The biggest cyberattack in China's history has been called the biggest.