According to The Record, a hacker invaded the IT network of the Argentine government and stole the ID information of the entire population of the country. These data are now being sold in private circles. The target of the hacker attack that occurred last month was RENAPER, or Regional Nacional de las Personas, which translates to the National Register of Persons.
This agency is a key department of the Argentine Ministry of Internal Affairs. Its mission is to issue national ID cards to all citizens. In addition, it stores data in digital format as a database that other government agencies can access, and it becomes the majority of governments that inquire about citizens’ personal information. backbone.
Data of football players Messi and Sergio Aguero leaked on Twitter
Earlier this month, a newly registered account named @AnibalLeaks published on Twitter the ID photos and personal details of 44 Argentine celebrities. This is the first evidence of someone invading RENAPER. This includes detailed information on the country’s President Alberto Fernandez, several journalists and political figures, and even figures on football superstars Messi and Sergio Aguero.
One day after the picture and personal information were published on Twitter, the hacker also posted an advertisement on a well-known hacker forum to provide a service to query the personal information of any Argentine user.
Faced with the retreat of the media following the Twitter leak, the Argentine government confirmed the security breach three days later. The Ministry of Internal Affairs stated in a press release on October 13 that its security team discovered that a VPN account assigned to the Ministry of Health was used to query 19 photos in the RENAPER database, which occurred when these photos were posted on the social network Twitter. At the moment of posting.
The officials also added, The (RENAPER) database has not suffered any data leakage or leakage, and the authorities are currently investigating the possible role of eight government employees in the leakage incident.
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The hacker has a copy of the data and plans to sell and leak the data
After contacting the individuals who rented the RENAPER database on the hacker forum, The Record learned that the hackers also had a copy of RENAPER data, which contradicted the official statement of the Argentine government. This person proved their statement by providing the personal data of an Argentine citizen selected by The Record-including a highly sensitive Trámite number.
Maybe in a few days I will release (data) of 1 million or 2 million people, the RENAPER hacker told the media earlier today. In addition, they also stated that they plan to continue to sell access to these data to all interested buyers.
When The Record shared a link to a government press release in which officials attributed the intrusion to a potentially compromised VPN account, the hacker simply replied that it was done by a careless employee, which indirectly confirmed the point of entry.
According to the samples provided by hackers on the Internet, the information they can now access includes full name, home address, date of birth, gender information, ID card issuance and expiration date, labor identification code, Trámite number, citizen number and government ID card Photo.
Argentina currently has an estimated population of more than 45 million, but it is not clear how many entries are in the database. But hackers claim to have everything. This is the second major security breach in the country’s history after the Gorra leaks in 2017 and 2019 when hackers leaked the personal information of Argentine politicians and police forces.