Data thieves have stolen the personal information of 108 million people registered with official institutions in Turkey, including Turkish citizens residing both within the country and abroad, as well as refugees.
The stolen data encompasses full identification details, residential addresses, and mobile phone numbers, according to reporting from FreeWeb Turkey.
This is not the first instance of a data breach. Over the years, multiple websites have surfaced offering similar personal information through user panels.
The National Cyber Incident Response Center (USOM), affiliated with Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), detected the breach. USOM reached out to Google for assistance, stating, "We are legally obligated to protect our citizens against all kinds of cyberattacks, including phishing, account takeovers, and data breaches. In this context, we would like to bring to your attention that some critical data has been successfully uploaded to your system."
USOM provided Google with links to the relevant Drive files and requested their "immediate" removal with an "urgent" code. They also asked Google to cooperate by providing user account IDs, IP addresses, and port numbers of the individuals who uploaded the files.
Google complies with request
In two separate letters dated Jul 29 and Sep 3, USOM emphasized to Google, "Your prompt response in this matter is of utmost importance in protecting the integrity and security of the affected users."
Google complied with the request and removed the files. However, it remains unclear whether they shared any information with BTK.
The stolen files contain individuals' full names, identification numbers, family and individual sequence numbers, birthdates, birthplaces, registered provinces, districts, and villages, marital statuses, death dates, residential addresses, and mobile phone numbers.
Among the stolen data are the Turkish identification numbers of 108 million people, residential addresses of 82,322,190 people, and mobile phone numbers of 134,817,279 individuals.
The five files, encompassing data of all individuals registered with any official body in Turkey, regardless of their citizenship status, have a total size of 42.18 GB. (VK)