Data theft a clear and present danger

A day after a threat actor called "Fenice" claimed to have hacked 1.4 billion user accounts on Tencent, the Chinese internet giant told Southern Metropolis Daily on Wednesday that the claim was untrue and the information was rigged up and exaggerated with historical materials, misleading the public.

According to a news release issued by Schubert Jonckheer& Kolbe LLP, the company investigating the issue, a cybercriminal group called USDoD hacked the US' national public database based in Florida in April, after which the database containing information on 2.9 billion people was available on the dark web for $3.5 million.

The US case is a reminder to all platforms worldwide that store users' data to guard the data from theft in a more secure way. US media outlets have, expectedly, been crying themselves hoarse with headlines such as "Hackers may have stolen the social security numbers of every American".

It won't be surprising if more people face similar fallout now considering the huge amount of information stolen from the US database. Similar risks stare at registered users of social networking sites such as Meta (formerly Facebook), X(formerly Twitter), YouTube and others where they have shared personal information in the process of creating the accounts.

That in turn calls for joint efforts from all sides to safeguard netizens. While the police around the world need to cooperate more closely to strike at the criminal gangs involved in personal data theft, it's also necessary for the internet giants to strengthen cooperation with their governments, take stricter prevention measures and build firmer and higher firewalls, to minimize, if not eradicate, the possibility of criminals stealing personal information. That's an issue that concerns the safety of a majority of the 8 billion residents on Earth, the urgency of which is beyond dispute.