Delhi Police arrests four people accused for selling personal details on dark web

According to a Gartner report, End-user spending on security and risk management in India will hit a total of $2.65 billion in 2023, an increase of 8.3% from 2022. (Representational image: Pixabay)

Four persons were arrested on December 18 for allegedly selling Indian citizens' data on the dark web.

According to Delhi Police, the Cyber Unit took action on the alleged leak of personal data from the ICMR data bank in October. The accused persons were arrested around 10 days ago. The data leaked from ICMR's data bank was sold on the black market, the police said. "Aadhaar and passport data were offered for sale on the black market in October," the police added.

In September this year, another threat actor going by the handle, "pwnOOO1" posted a listing on a now defunct dark web website Breach Forums stating they were selling personally identifiable information including Aadhar and Passport details for $80,000.

In an interview with Moneycontrol, pwnOOO1 said he did not hack any database but bought the data for $50,ooo last year.

According to a Gartner report, End-user spending on security and risk management in India will hit a total of $2.65 billion in 2023, an increase of 8.3% from 2022.

“The increase in adoption of digitalization, cloud applications and the rise in remote workers exposes Indian organizations to greater security risks,” said Rustam Malik, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner.

“In addition, growing concerns on the rising number of ransomware attacks coupled with stringent government measures on digital data protection and security breach reporting are pressing chief information security officers (CISOs) to increase their security and risk management spending for 2023,” Malik added.