750 million Indian mobile subscribers’ info for sale on dark web

January 28, 2024 TH Author

Asia In Brief Indian infosec firm CloudSEK last week claimed it found records describing 750 million Indian mobile network subscribers on the dark web, with two crime gangs offering the trove of data for just $3,000.

CloudSEK named CYBO CREW affiliates CyboDevil and UNIT8200 as the vendors of a 1.8TB trove, which contains mobile subscribers’ names, phone numbers, addresses, and Aadhaar details.

CloudSEK stated its investigation of the trove saw threat actors claim to have “obtained the data through undisclosed asset work within law enforcement channels” rather than as a result of a leak from Indian telcos. CloudSEK said its initial analysis found that the leak affects all major telecom providers. “The leak of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) poses a huge risk to both individuals and organizations, potentially leading to financial losses, identity theft, reputational damage, and increased susceptibility to cyber attacks,” stated CloudSEK.

Samsung turns to Baidu for Galaxy S24 AI in China

After making an alliance with Google the centerpiece of the launch for its Galaxy S24 smartphone range, Samsung has decided to use the ERNIE model from China’s Baidu for versions of the devices sold in the Middle Kingdom.

Baidu told The Register that ERNIE will allow the S24 to perform real-time call translation, intelligent summarization of transcribed documents, and enable the circle to search feature – with results from the Chinese giant’s search engine.

Circle to search was previously only offered on the S24 and Google’s own Pixel 8 handsets.

Terraform Labs seeks bankruptcy protections

Singapore-based crypto outfit Terraform Labs (TFL) last week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. The exchange – which hit trouble when its stablecoin crashed and wiped $42 billion from investors’ portfolios – called the move “a strategic, protective step that enables TFL to continue executing its business plan while resolving outstanding legal proceedings, including representative litigation pending in Singapore and US litigation involving the SEC.”

A filing with the bankruptcy court in Delaware revealed the outfit has assets and liabilities in the range of $100 to $500 million. Terraform Labs continues to operate despite its troubles, and ongoing attempts to extradite founder Do Kwon from Montenegro.

India’s IT minister pushes for supercomputing hub

Indian IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar reportedly revealed last week that his ministry would propose a $1.2 million supercomputing and quantum computing hub. The public-private scheme would offer high performance computing (HPC) access to startups, micro, small and medium enterprises – either on a lease or on a “compute-as-a-service” basis. “It will include setting up of graphic processing units in PPP mode with datacenters in the private space and public datacenters under C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing),” Chandrasekhar is reported to have said, before adding that C-DAC’s existing PARAM supercomputers will be included in the scheme to boost AI capabilities.

Telstra partners on US-Singapore cable

Telstra International and Trans Pacific Networks (TPN) announced a partnership on the Echo undersea cable. The cable is the first of its kind to connect the US directly to Singapore and will also connect to Indonesia and Guam. The path between Guam and the US will launch this year, while the rest won’t be live until 2025.

Telstra will become TPN’s operating partner and will deliver cable landing station services. The 17,000km cable is owned by Google and Meta. The Australian telco cited predictions that bandwidth demand across the Pacific will increase by 39 percent year on year until 2029.

In other news …

Our regional coverage from last week included Huawei’s ambition to break from Android with its own Harmony OS, and the Chinese government’s fresh attempts to define metaverse standards.

We also noted South Korea’s restoration of smartphone subsidies and the unexpected profit posted by local memory-maker SK hynix. Still on the peninsula, we considered North Korea’s increasing use of AI and fears that cloud providers and scientists may not be doing enough to stop the rogue nation obtaining the resources it needs for applications like battle planning.

The sad demise of Japan’s SLIM Moon lander also caught our eye.

So did Taiwan’s first homegrown quantum computer going online, and Australia sanctioning a Russian national suspected of a 2022 attack on health insurer Medibank Private. ®