An extraordinary data leak has revealed the names of 779 Finns on a watch list compiled by a technology firm said to have close ties to the Chinese government. It’s why they are doing it. DASH and SUKE will offer alternative routes that will ease road congestion. The database was leaked to American academic Christopher Balding, who was previously based in Shenzhen but has returned to the US because of security concerns. Read more. Information on prominent former military personnel are also recorded in the leaked data. Potter said that while his company was continuing to work on restoring the data, he did not think the full system was recoverable. Zhenhua Data leak: personal details of millions around world gathered by China tech company. Security researcher Robert Potter and Balding co-authored a paper [PDF] claiming the trove is known as the “Overseas Key Information Database” (OKIDB) and that while most of it could have been scraped from social media or other publicly-accessible sources, 10 to 20 per cent of it appears not to have come … Screengrab of a document from the Chinese government-linked firm Zhenhua Data. Inclusion in the list does not implicate individuals in nefarious activity, it simply implies that at some point in time they were deemed worth monitoring by the creators of the list. FMT finds 1,400 prominent Malaysians listed in Zhenhua data leak. If you're one of 35,000 Australians whose name appears on China's leaked social media warfare database, here's a few things to think about. 26 thoughts on “ Statement on Shenzhen Zhenua Data Leak ” Pingback: Chinese Firm 'Collects Data On Millions Worldwide' - Dr Don's ICFO News Safety and Security Pingback: Leak Reveals Chinese language Database Profiling Tens of millions Of People, Navy Targets, 'Politically Uncovered' Folks - fooshya.com Pingback: Shenzhen Zhenua Data Leak – high profile international … Internet 2.0, a cybersecurity consultancy based in Canberra whose customers include the US and Australian governments, said it had been able to recover the records of about 250,000 people from the leaked dataset, including about 52,000 Americans, 35,000 Australians and nearly 10,000 Britons. “There are many companies that are doing similar things. Our business model and partners are our trade secrets. Robert Potter, co-founder of the Canberra-based firm Internet 2.0, told the Guardian the database was “ambitious” in its scope. While the data Zhenhua uses is publicly available data, Zhenhua's usage of that data is a security concern to democratic countries. National Security Chinese Data Leak Shows Thousands of CCP Members Employed by U.S. and European Companies. Copyright © 2009 - 2021 FMT Media Sdn Bhd. A leaked database appears to show that Chinese company Zhenhua Data has collected data on 2.4 million people, in an attempt to carry out 'psychological warfare'.. Australia’s energy minister, Angus Taylor, said the reports would be concerning if true, but he argued the government was already boosting spending on cybersecurity to ensure “that we are secure against cyber intrusion”. “When agglomerated, this data opens up myriad opportunities to conduct targeted influence activities should the need arise … This can include dis and mis-information, inauthentic simulation (deep fakes), straight-up bribery, and general muddying of the information environment in which democracy operates.”, Samantha Hoffman, an analyst from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Cyber Centre, said: “What is happening is that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and PRC-based companies are engaging in global bulk data collection to assist the Chinese party state in various objectives whether it is military, propaganda or security.”, Hoffman said the insecurity of these databases was another point of concern. “But what is unusual about this discovery is the use of big data and outsourcing to a private company.”. Sun of Zhenhua said that such a database, the Overseas Key Information Database (OKIDB), does exist but that it merely connects individuals to the social media they use. “The reason Cambridge Analytica was scandalous wasn’t because they were accessing information on people’s private messages on Facebook. Canberra-based cybersecurity company Internet 2.0 was able to recover 250,000 of the 2.4 million names on the list that was provided to them, which means that this leak is just over 10% of the total database. Zhenhua Data leak: personal details of millions around world gathered by China tech company. The database was first leaked on Telegram, an instant messaging app. It compiles information on everyone from key public individuals to low-level individuals in an institution in a way Balding believes could be used to better monitor and understand how to exert influence. On the question of legality, Potter said even though much of the data was readily available online, its collation raised major ethical issues. Program Imunisasi Covid-19 Kebangsaan yang bakal bermula hujung bulan ini dijangka memberi impak besar kepada usaha membendung penularan Covid-19. Some analysts said it was not surprising that a private company was amassing detailed data sets on notable individuals in government, industry, finance and academic. Asked if governments should be worried, he warned, “they should be, and they are,” and cited investigations into the matter in India, Australia and the UK. Balding described the breadth of the data as “staggering”. It was compiled by Zhenhua Data, based in the south-eastern Chinese city of Shenzhen. “I’ve seen whole books outlining the careers and political views of US China experts,” Brady added. “The primary policy element that I would think about, aside from influence operations, is that of privacy legislation. “Open source doesn’t necessarily mean people want it to be public,” Potter said in an interview. The findings were first published on Monday by a consortium of media outlets including the Australian Financial Review and the Daily Telegraph in the UK. The Italian parliamentary security committee has announced an investigation on the data leak from Chinese tech company Zhenhua, where detailedprofiles of at least 4,500 Italians were found That has its own implications in terms of privacy protection as well as how exploitable the data is.”, Hoffman said it was not clear what the data is used for. Asia Zhenhua data leak exposes China's new 'hybrid warfare' A Chinese data company has harvested information on millions of people, allegedly on behalf of Beijing's intelligence services. By. The office of New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, did not respond to a request for comment. Lots of Western tech companies collect a lot of data and that should be uncomfortable for a lot of people but at the end of the day there’s a difference between what they are doing and what Chinese companies who claim to be directly contributing to state security are doing.”. Under authoritarian government it is non-existent,” said Dr Zac Rogers of Flinders University in South Australia. Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Information Technology Co is a big data scraping company that provides open-source intelligence profiling and threat intelligence services. getty. This is just a data integration. We do not collect data. The CCP and China’s Ministry of State Security has long compiled country-by-country information about foreign economic and political elites, and foreigners who had lived in China for any period, said Anne-Marie Brady, a veteran China researcher and professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. They include politicians, such as prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison and their relatives, the royal family, celebrities and military figures. “It is not an ideal situation, of course, but it is not unusual in our industry,” a spokesperson told the Guardian. Image: Yle, Kuvankäsittely: Harri Vähäkangas / Yle Yle has determined that a list of Finnish names found in a Chinese data leak corresponds with a list in a US database.. Labor’s home affairs spokesperson, Kristina Keneally, told the ABC the case highlighted “that the threat of foreign interference in the capacity to amass big datasets on a population is real – and we’ve got to take that threat very seriously”. He said the compilation of public open-source material could be “hugely valuable” to an intelligence organisation. The CEOs and board members of private and public companies worth billions also show up on the database obtained. 35,000+ Australians among the 2.4 million profiles. ... And that includes names of family members, ages, previous relationships, all kinds of … Gilmour Space Technologies said it was aware of the reports. “The line between public and private surveillance in the digital age is blurry. Ms Markson said the leak is a register with the details of Communist Party members, including their names, party position, birthday, national ID number and ethnicity. Rogers said deeply personal and granular information about individuals was scattered freely across the internet. “From politics to organised crime or technology and academia just to name a few, the database flows from sectors the Chinese state and linked enterprises are known to target,” Balding said. Rogers, who is research leader at the Jeff Bleich Centre for the US Alliance in Digital Technology, Security and Governance, said the likely primary purpose of the data collection was “to provide grist for CCP information operations”. However, it is not always legal to then scrape that data for third party purposes.”. Senior Minister for Security Ismail Sabri Yaakob had previously said the international news reports of the leak required verification before further action could be taken. It was because they were misusing the permissions that were given by users to those platforms.”. The database leak, originally reported by The Australian, revealed the identities of nearly 2 million CCP members, thousands of which were … When contacted by the Guardian for comment, a representative of Zhenhua said: “The report is seriously untrue.”. Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Information Technology Co is a big data scraping company that provides open-source intelligence profiling and threat intelligence services. Cybersecurity experts concerned by possible intent behind use of big data to compile lists featuring everyone from low-key individuals to the royal family, First published on Mon 14 Sep 2020 07.42 BST. In a statement, Balding said the individual who provided the data had put themselves at risk but had “done an enormous service and is proof that many inside China are concerned about CCP [Chinese Communist party] authoritarianism and surveillance”. Chinese company Zhenhua Data tracked a secret package from the CSIRO's Deep Space Communications Centre outside Canberra all the way to NASA in California, leaked information shows. The Zhenhua Data leak is "business as usual" for data collection, a technology commentator says. About 2.4 million people are included in the database, assembled mostly based on public open-source data such as social media profiles, analysts said. Putrajaya’s stimulus packages help sustain business operations while cushioning the financial impact on vulnerable people affected by the economic downturn. In most cases, processors handling such large volumes of data have to meet a number of demands to be in compliance with the relevant regulations. Ronald Mizen and Natasha Gillezeau Sep 14, … All Rights Reserved. There also appear to be records kept on family members of politicians, including a descendant of a former prime minister. Zhenhua Data, a Shenzhen-based company which lists the People's Liberation Army and Chinese Communist Party among its main clients, has been harvesting data … “The terms of service of these platforms allow users to provide data to the firms that operate them. Zhenhua (full name: Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Information Technology) has been collecting data since 2017. Getty Images Jack Beyrer-December 14, 2020 3:20 PM I've been looking around but can't find a source for all the reporting done to date. “OKIDB exists but it is not as magical as they say,” she said, referring to the foreign media reports. Stories of Chinese Intelligence Firms leveraging Big Data Analysis, Social Media Platforms, LinkedIn, Mobile Devices, SIGINT, etc are all over the internet. In a statement shared on his blog, Professor Balding called the Zhenhua data leak 'staggering' and said experts 'continue to radically underestimate the … Make it a must for employers in gig economy to register... NZ govt asked if Santhara had skipped quarantine queue, 3,500 anggota tentera di Sarawak terima vaksin fasa pertama 11 Mac, Medics welcome efficacy data on India’s shunned homegrown jab, Naza TTDI presents para-athletes with keys to new homes. Photo: 123RF Details of at least 800 New Zealanders - politicians, judges, business leaders, journalists and even criminals - have been collected by the China-based company, which has been linked to Chinese military and intelligence. Robert Potter, CEO and co-founder of Internet 2.0, told FMT that this sort of information could be used by analysts to assess the “targetability” of individuals’, as well as forming the basis of widespread influence campaigns. This is purely curiosity, I'd like to see the list. It was compiled by Zhenhua Data, based in the south-eastern Chinese city of Shenzhen. One of the more striking details about the data leak is a significant portion of the information is out of date. The 799 names were released among some 2.4 million others in mid-September as part of a massive international data leak. However the recent stories about the Zhenhua Data Leak in the Indian Express caught our attention and we decided to leverage our ShadowMap platform to get some more insight on the Zhenhua Data operation. Zhenhua maintains a company blog on WeChat with a possibly tongue-in-cheek name — “Bureau 99” — that is reminiscent of the numbered divisions within the Chinese military.