Data Of Organisations, 16.8 Crore Individuals Stolen, 6 Arrested

Cyberabad Police apprehended a gang involved in committing theft, procuring and selling of sensitive and confidential data of the government and important organisations and also personal and confidential data of 16.8 crore citizens.

The accused have been identified as Kumar Nitish Bhushan, Kumari Pooja Pal, Susheel Thomar, Atul Pratap Singh, Muskan Hassan and Sandeep Pal. All of them have been arrested.

As many as 12 mobile phones, 3 Laptops, 2 CPU's, mails and tax invoices and data of 138 categories containing sensitive information of government, private organisations and individuals were seized by police.

"The accused persons have been found selling different categories of information exceeding more than 140 categories that include some of the important and sensitive categories like details of defence personnel, mobile numbers of citizens, NEET students, Energy and Power sector, PAN card data, Government employees, Gas & Petroleum, HNIs, D-MAT accounts, students database, woman database, Bangalore woman consumer data, data of people who have applied for loans, insurance, credit card and debit card holders (of AXIS, HSBC and other banks), WhatsApp users, Facebook users, IT organisation employees, frequent flyers etc," said police officials.

"When any individual calls the toll-free numbers of JustDial and asks for any sector or category-related confidential data of individuals, their query is listed and sent to that category of the service provider. Then these fraudsters call those clients/ fraudsters and send them samples. If the client agrees to purchase, they make payment and are provided with the data. This data is further used for committing crimes," said police officials.

In this case, the accused gang operated through registered and unregistered 3 companies Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts and MS Digital Grow.

"Sensitive data of defence personnel containing their ranks, email ids, place of posting, etc was found available with these accused. Data of NEET students with their names, father names, mobile numbers and their residences are also found with these accused. PAN Card database containing sensitive information on income, email ids, phone numbers, addresses etc was also found. Data of Government employees containing information on their name, mobile number, category, date of birth etc was also found. Gas and Petroleum companies database with the names, mobile numbers, email ids, addresses etc of franchisees was found," said officials.

As per officials, the mobile number database of 3 crore individuals probably leaked from Telecom Service Providers with the order number, service start date, segment details, billing details account number, sim number etc was also found which can be used for committing various crimes.

"Further data of customers from reputed financial institutions containing information on account details like name, account number, income, transaction details, mobile number, address, etc were found. Data of WhatsApp users of 1.2 crore individuals with their state details were found. Data of Facebook users of 17 lakh individuals with information on login id, IP city, age, email id, phone number etc was also found," informed police officials.

As per police officials, the sensitive data can be used for unauthorised access to important organisations and institutions.

"The data of defence and government employees can be used for espionage, impersonate and commit serious offences which may jeopardise the National Security. The data relating to pan cards can be used to commit serious offences. The data is being used to commit a large number of cybercrimes by gaining the confidence of the victim by disclosing the above information," said police officials.