Iran’s Police Confirm Hacking and Data Leak of 20 Million Irancel Users
Iran’s police have confirmed the hacking and disclosure of personal information belonging to 20 million Irancel subscribers and stated they are searching for the perpetrator or perpetrators.
Colonel Hossein Ramazani, the legal and international deputy of Iran’s Police Fata (Information Exchange Space), said today on July 2 to the Mehr news agency: “Recently, an individual designed a bot on one of the mobile social networks and disclosed old information of that operator’s [Irancel’s] subscribers, following which the telephone operator’s legal department immediately filed a complaint with the judiciary against the bot creator and the person who distributed the information.”
Ramazani stated: “Currently, there is no cause for concern, and from a technical and professional perspective, this operator has implemented appropriate security measures to protect and respect the privacy of its users.”
The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology has also reported that the bot has been blocked.
The Tehran edition of Etemaad newspaper reported in today’s issue that for the past two days “a Telegram bot, upon entering Irancel phone numbers, was publicly disclosing private information of the phone number owners, including names, surnames, national ID codes, cities of residence, home addresses, and postal codes.”
Officials at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology have confirmed that the theft of Irancel subscriber information occurred two years ago, but Etemaad newspaper states that Irancel kept the theft of this information hidden during this period, which according to the newspaper “could create opportunities for various types of fraud.”
Based on reports from Iranian media, Irancel has made its explanation regarding the hack and disclosure of its subscribers’ information “conditional on completing its information.”
Source: BBC
