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Following unsuccessful extortion by Argentine authorities, tens of thousands of passport data were released. Thousands of Swiss and Germans are affected.
After a cyberattack, unknown hackers uploaded internal files from Argentine immigration authorities. According to information from Bayrischer Rundfunk (BR), this also includes passport information for more than 11,000 Swiss citizens who were in Argentina between January and mid-March.
Data allows identity theft
The data includes names, dates of birth, passport numbers and the travel destination of the interested persons. This also includes around 12,000 German citizens, as well as diplomats and possibly citizens of Israel and France.
The German Interior Ministry advises those affected to be especially vigilant, as criminals could attempt to commit identity theft. But you don’t need to apply for a new passport because of this.
The Swiss Department of Foreign Relations, EDA, said they were aware of the attack and were in contact with local authorities in Argentina, as BR journalist Maximilian Zierer said.
Failed blackmail attempt by hackers
“This is a blackmail attempt, this is about money,” the data journalist continued. Zierer participated in the investigation.
There is a group of hackers behind the so-called “ransom attack” on the Argentine immigration authorities. According to BR’s investigation, the perpetrators penetrated the Argentine computer system, encrypted the data and demanded four million dollars so that the data could be decrypted again and not published on the Internet.
Apparently the money was not paid, so the hackers put the data on the Darknet, the “hidden” Internet, which is accessible to everyone with the right software.
