The personal data of more than 6 million Argentines are exposed on the social network Telegram after the hack suffered by the Government in the computer system used to grant driver’s licenses.
The leak occurred on Tuesday, April 16 and although a judicial case was initiated that is in charge of the Specialized Cybercrime Fiscal Unit (UFECI) led by the prosecutor Horacio Azzolin, access to sensitive information of all affected citizens It is available and within reach of any mobile phone user.
After the attack that allowed hackers to access a part of the database that stores information on the National Driver’s License of the National Road Safety Agency, a hacker had posted part of the files on Telegram to market them: He asked for $3,000 to access them..
In that first publication, there was information from the driving records of showbiz personalities and also politicians. Among them, the president of the Nation himself, Javier Mileifrom the Minister of Defense Luis Petriand the Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich.
“Fortunately, this fact was alerted at the time by the computer security team and that made it possible to take the necessary precautions to stop access to that information and block future hacks,” the National Road Safety Agency stated at the time. And they clarified that “the data obtained is those shared by the ANSV with a few organizations that require information from the National Driver’s License to form the digital license.”
This is a lot 1.2 terabytes of information extracted through a cyberattack on the National Directorate of the Automotive Property Registry (DNRPA). When it was discovered, the Government indicated that the leak did not cover sensitive information. However, It is enough to enter a Telegram group called Leak Licenses to understand the scope of the attack.
There, users of this popular messaging application have the possibility of executing the command “/DNI” and entering a person’s number to verify if their information was leaked. As can be seen in the video that accompanies this note, Bullrich’s driver’s license is one of those that is available in the system to be downloaded.
The first consultation with the bot is free. The second quotes $3000 and whoever makes the request is directed to the Stripe payment platform, which is not always available. Infobae attempted to pay to access a second license and the transaction was declined.
Official sources indicated that behind the cyberattack would be the same attacker who at the beginning of April had stolen 116,000 photos of Argentine citizens from the National Registry of Persons (Renaper).
That leak came to light through a report from the United Kingdom company BCA LTD, specialized in cyber, cybercrime, and digital threats. With the stolen data, the hacker group He published photos, ID numbers, addresses and even blood group.
According to what the hacker group stated in a message they distributed in English, responsibility for the leak corresponds to the Head of State. “President Milei is not interested in having a cybersecurity plan, like in other countries in the world,” the communication states.
Regarding the Renaper robbery, on April 3 it was learned that the data from a file with 116,459 photos of citizens of Argentina that had been stolen from that dependency of the National State in 2021.
