Alibaba leaks billions of data points via Chinese web crawler

Alibaba leaks billions of data points via Chinese web crawler

Alibaba’s Chinese online shopping platform Taobao has suffered a data breach of over a billion data points that include usernames and mobile phone numbers.

According to the Wall Street Journal and Chinese news outlet 163.com, a Chinese software developer secretly used web crawling software over eight months to collect more than 1 billion pieces of user data, such as user IDs, mobile phone numbers and online comments.

After Alibaba spotted the leak from Taobao, the online retail giant informed the police and started to work with law enforcement to protect its customers.

An Alibaba spokesperson also said none of the data was sold to third parties and no financial losses were incurred as of the date of the announcement.

Readers may recall a similar incident back in April, when a hacker had leaked personal data on an estimated 533 million Facebook users, to include phone numbers and Facebook account details. The data was leaked on a publicly accessible hacking forum.

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