According to a report by Reuters, a digital hacker posted the personal information like the full name, address, and date of birth of the entire population of Austria in the virtual world. According to the police, the information was collected by the 25-year-old Dutch criminal who was working from his apartment in Amsterdam. The data was made available for sale on an online forum in May 2020 while the suspect was apprehended in November and the statement by the police was issued yesterday.
The police in a statement confirmed the authenticity and said that he presented the data stating that it was "the full name, gender, complete address, and date of birth of presumably every citizen" in Austria. The data had all the data required for registration including the current address which residents have to provide to the authorities.
The cache contained around nine million different data sets and he had also put similar data sets from Italy, Colombia and Netherlands on sale. The Austrian police also added that they did not have any additional information.
As the data was freely available on the internet the police believe that the data in full or in part can be used by criminals. The police also added that unknown people were believed to have paid for the data.
The 25-year-old suspect was known to international police and is under investigation by the Dutch police and judicial authorities. Talking about the delayed statement the spokesman said that the statement was published now so as not to harm the investigations.
The police did not elaborate on the consequences for Austrians' data security.
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