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In that dramatic moment in 2014, a jaw-dropping news stirred up huge waves in the Internet community like a deep sea bomb! A magical website "I am a social worker database" has flourished, as long as you enter the other party's QQ number, you can access a large number of private information of the other party, including chat history, encrypted album photos and other sensitive information.
The birth of this "artifact" is undoubtedly a blatant provocation to everyone's privacy!
This blockbuster news swept through Weibo like a storm, instantly attracting nearly 2,000 crazy retweets. In just a few days, netizens across China have joined this sparkling debate, which has sparked heated discussions and widespread attention across the country.
However, just as the buzz had not completely subsided, the website suddenly disappeared like a flash in the pan, only because someone exposed its illegal behavior to the relevant authorities.
With the closure of the website, the buzz of discussion has gradually subsided, but the controversy over privacy has not stopped. At that time, no one could have predicted that this was only a prologue to the whole incident, an introduction, and the iceberg behind the truly shocking "social engineering database" had already been quietly nurtured in the shadows.
This kind of database, which is jokingly called the "social worker database", is essentially the base camp of a large amount of personal privacy information stolen by hackers through illegal means, which is carefully organized, classified and stored, and finally forms a huge database.
At a negligible price, anyone can easily access other people's privacy, which is undoubtedly an unprecedented severe test for personal privacy and information security.
What's even more creepy is that with the help of this terrifying social worker database, malicious actors can even reverse trace your identity information, residential address, and even detailed records of whether you have stayed in a hotel based on your mobile phone number alone, and everything will be hidden.
It's chilling that this seemingly absurd "marital detective" plot is actually possible in real life, and it can be seen that although this hidden social worker pool in the dark world is only the tip of the iceberg, the threat it poses is so staggering.
So, how did the massive amount of personal information hidden in the social worker's database fall into the hands of hackers? The truth is shocking and infuriating!
First of all, we have to mention that hackers are always adept at exploiting system vulnerabilities and insider vulnerabilities to carry out large-scale and sophisticated data theft activities. Many of these hackers are skilled programmers, and they will do their best to decipher the other team's system architecture for each target.
Imagine a hacker in a black mask, lurking in a gloomy basement, his computer screen scrolling through code like a wild dance, frowning and listening intently to the faint sound of the server.
Their eyes gleamed with victory, but instead of rushing into a fierce attack, they made a careful small-scale probe before launching a real surprise attack to steal data on a large scale after confirming that they could infiltrate quietly.
It is this cunning strategy that allows them to continue to collect a large amount of information over a long period of time, and their whereabouts are difficult to detect.
Another situation that is difficult to prevent is the leakage of assistance from the company's internal personnel. By virtue of their position, they can easily obtain a large amount of customer information and trade secrets.
However, once fooled by monetary gain, they may take risks and sell their valuable data to hackers.
For example, in 2021, a core technician of Neusoft Group sold the company's trade secrets for personal gain, bringing a huge economic loss of up to 40 million yuan to the company.
The real victims are ordinary consumers who are unaware of this, and their privacy rights and interests have been seriously violated.
It's no exaggeration to say that if you've ever left a digital footprint of your personal information on any website, you're likely to be the target of these hackers' "hunger" weapons.
For example, recklessly compromising your privacy when logging in on public WiFi, or improperly authorizing certain apps to read your contacts, photo albums, and other permissions, are all high-risk risks of stealing your private information.
In the face of the endless theft methods of hackers, how should we comprehensively guard against it? This is undoubtedly a worrying problem.
So, what is it that drives those hackers to steal the private information of ordinary people in an almost crazy way? This is really a strong anger and deep uneasiness - they want to take this precious information for themselves and make a fortune in the dark industry chain!
First, the hackers sort the massive amount of private data they have stolen according to pre-set criteria, and then store it in a digital tool such as an Excel spreadsheet.
They then sell the information at a very high price to buyers who need it urgently.
The main buyers are criminal gangs that specialize in online fraud. Using the detailed personal information provided by the social worker database, they can easily disguise themselves as trusted acquaintances, relatives and friends, and easily obtain more information about the victim's family and financial situation through telephone conversations, thus winning the absolute trust of the other party.
However, when the victims let their guard down, these cunning scammers will immediately start a criminal operation that has been carefully planned for a long time. It is often only after suffering huge losses that the poor victims realize that they have fallen into a scam and that doom is quietly befalling them.
In addition, there is another category of buyers who covet the social work pool, and that is the marketing departments of major companies. By purchasing privacy big data, they were able to grasp the user's demographic information, family status and other sensitive information, and then tailor an exclusive precision marketing strategy for each user, which greatly improved the conversion rate of promotion.
However, this kind of behavior that does not hesitate to infringe on users' privacy rights in pursuit of marketing interests has undoubtedly seriously violated the red line of law and morality. It is truly shocking and outrageous that we are deeply aware that privacy is being ruthlessly traded, and that we, as innocent ordinary people, are being ruthlessly exploited by these black chains of interests.
In fact, behind the existence of the social work pool, there is a huge and complete black industrial chain. This industrial chain has a clear upstream and downstream division of labor, and the layout is intricate, like a bottomless black hole, which is terrifying.
At the top of the chain, there are hackers who are responsible for collecting raw data. They play an important role in the source of production, using illegal technical means to steal all kinds of personal privacy information.
This is followed by information processing experts, who are responsible for combing, classifying and integrating a large amount of raw data obtained by hackers by unscrupulous means, so as to build a complete and orderly database, and then form a structured and systematic information resource base.
However, the most critical downstream link is the actual buyers and users, who use the massive amount of information collected through illegal activities to carry out endless frauds, carry out various marketing strategies and other illegal and criminal activities in order to grab illegal profits.
According to authoritative media reports, hundreds of millions of pieces of sensitive personal information are stored in a specific social worker database alone, and the number of frequent citations and queries has exceeded an astonishing 1 billion! This undoubtedly reveals the huge scale and far-reaching influence of the social worker database.
What is even more shocking is that such "social worker databases" are by no means isolated cases, but are spread almost all over the country, and the amount of information stored in each database has reached an astonishing scale of hundreds of millions.
This dark underground industry chain is seriously threatening and destroying the entire Internet ecological environment and social trust system.
In the face of such a sensational reality, how should we effectively protect ourselves? And how should we completely cut off this black chain of evil? This is no longer just an issue at the individual level, but also a serious challenge facing the whole society, which urgently requires the common attention and attention of all the people.
In this highly information-based age, every ordinary citizen is at great risk of their privacy being wantonly violated, because we are inadvertently leaking our information every minute of our daily lives.
Too often, we unknowingly cede our privacy rights to unfettered third parties.
For example, you might not hesitate to grant sensitive permissions such as contacts, photo albums, geolocation, etc., to certain seemingly innocuous applications. Once such apps are manipulated or stolen by criminals, your precious personal information will spread like a flood of beasts.
Some people may easily reveal their real identity when they log in on public WiFi. They unsuspectingly think that this is just an ordinary network connection, only to know that their privacy has long been silently intercepted and captured by hackers' sniffing tools.
In this information age, private data has become a vital asset. Once this precious private information falls into the hands of criminals, your personal safety and property safety will be seriously threatened! These potential dangers may be lurking around you, ready to launch a fierce attack at any time, and even continue to harass you.
However, it is heartbreaking and deeply worrying that even large corporations and well-known corporations that are highly respected and trusted by the public can fall into the abyss because of the desire for profit, and blatantly violate the law by selling customers' personal information.
This is undoubtedly a serious infringement of consumer rights and interests, and also a violation of the principle of social justice and fairness.
As recently as 2018, a well-known hotel chain attracted widespread media attention for its despicable methods of selling customer information at extremely low prices, and its egregious behavior was jaw-dropping.
It can be seen that the enterprise is not a pure land, and there are also frightening management loopholes and human weaknesses. Therefore, we must always be vigilant and think rationally in order to effectively resist these potential risks.