Alibaba’s Chinese online retail store, Taobao, has suffered a data leak exposing 1.1 billion pieces of customer data including user IDs and mobile phone numbers. The information was collected using a web crawler deployed to Taobao’s site in November 2019. Reports say that no encrypted information such as passwords was obtained.

About 925 million people use Alibaba’s Chinese retail platform at least once a month, according to the company. The fact that so many mobile phone numbers were leaked could potentially result in a huge surge in identity theft-related crimes.

In China, to obtain a mobile phone number, a person must register for it using their national identification number. In addition to this, Chinese consumers often sign up for internet services with their mobile phones. Knowing a person’s mobile number could potentially make it easier for cybercriminals to gain access to their social media accounts or find out other personal information.

Consumer data is often the primary target for hackers. They use the stolen information to commit identity theft, sell it on the dark web, or use it for extortion.

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