The Ministry of Digital Transformation has begun checking messages from Telegram channels about the leakage of data from recovered COVID-19 or vaccinated Russians from the STOP Coronavirus Public Services application, according to the ministry’s Telegram channel.
“The Ministry of Digital Development has begun an investigation into the appearance of messages in telegram channels about the leakage of anonymized data from the STOP Coronavirus Public Services application. At the same time, we note that the reports talk about the leakage of publicly available anonymized masked data (the first letters of the full name, date of birth and the last four digits of the passport),” the report says. The ministry recalled that a passport is needed to use QR codes with these data.
The Ministry of Digital Development said that the application database does not contain personal data of Russians. A random check of the published QR codes showed that they do not work, so it is impossible to confirm the validity of the published data. “We confirm that there are no threats to the security of personal data of vaccinated or recovered citizens,” the ministry stressed.
Earlier, the Information Leaks Telegram channel reported that a database of QR codes of vaccinated Russians from the STOP Coronavirus Public Services application was put up for sale on a dark web forum. The sample database contains 10,000 lines with the first letters of the patients’ full names in Russian and English, the date of birth, the patient’s unique registration number, the first two digits of the series and the last three digits of the passport number, the name of the vaccine, and a QR code in PNG format.
A random check of the channel showed that the codes are valid, they lead to the public services portal, and the data matches what is indicated on the official page for checking QR codes. The announcement says that the database contains 48 million lines, and it is being sold for $100,000, according to the telegram channel.