The Cyberabad police on Sunday busted what could be claimed India’s largest data theft in Hyderabad after they arrested a person who was allegedly involved in stealing, holding and selling personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore individuals and organisations belonging to 24 states and eight metropolitan cities.
"CyberabadPolice busted a data theft gang who has been involved in the theft, procurement, holding, and selling of personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore individuals and organizations across 24 states and 8 metropolitan cities," they informed via twitter.
The accused Vinay Bhardwaj was found possessing data of students of edu-tech organisations such as Byjus and Vedantu, consumer/ customer data of major organisations like GST, road transport organisations of various states, data of defence personnel, government employees, PAN card holders and major e-commerce portals.
He also held data from Amazon, Netflix, social media platforms such as Youtube and Instagram, Paytm, Phonepe and Zomato along with data from Big Basket, BookMyShow, Policy Bazar and Upstox.
Bhardwaj also had data of Delhi electricity consumers, D-MAT account holders, mobile numbers of various individuals, NEET students, high net worth individuals, insurance holders, credit card and debit card holders among others, the release said.
The accused was operating through a website called 'InspireWebz' based in Faridabad, Haryana, and was selling the database to clients," they added.
The police seized two mobile phones and two laptops and data of 135 categories containing sensitive information of government, private organisations and individuals.
In a similar case, last month, the Cyberabad Police in Telangana had busted a gang involved in the data theft and sale of sensitive information of government and important organisations.
The arrested seven members of the gang allegedly stole details of 2.55 lakh defence personnel and 16.8 crore citizens of India.