Passports of blockchain-vote participants in Russia put up for sale on the dark web

Unknown actors are selling on the dark web a database of 1.1 million passports of Russians who participated in the blockchain-voting on the constitutional amendments in the Russian Federation. This was reported by «Коммерсант».

Each line bound to passport data costs $1 in bulk and $1.50 retail. The seller told the publication that he had already sold 30,000 lines.

The authenticity of the database being sold was confirmed by Ashot Oganesyan, founder of DeviceLock.

Earlier, the importance of the leak was denied by the chair of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, and by Artem Kostyrko, head of the Moscow government’s Department for the Improvement of Territorial Governance and Development of Smart Projects. According to them, the archive contained a register of passport numbers without full names and dates of birth, and this cannot be called ‘personal data of voters’.

However, analysts note that a passport number can easily be supplemented with data from other pirate databases, for example the owner’s name, SNILS, INN, credit history, and companies registered to the owner. In this form, given its timeliness, the information gives hackers opportunities for further fraud and phishing.

According to InfoWatch, the number of data breaches in Russia in 2019 rose by 40% compared with the previous year.

Against a backdrop of rising scandals, Russian authorities decided to raise penalties for personal data leaks—to up to 500,000 rubles for companies and up to 100,000 rubles for officials. In addition, the introduction of criminal liability for sellers and buyers of databases is under discussion.

Earlier in July, the database of passport data of blockchain-voting participants became available on one of the forums. The Moscow government denied this information, but the hacked archive subsequently appeared in open access beyond the forum.

For more on how the black data market operates, read ForkLog’s in-depth feature.

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