Web desk: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has confirmed that personal data of citizens has been found for sale on the dark web.
PTA Chairman Major General (retd) Hafeez-ur-Rehman told this during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, chaired by Senator Palwasha Mohammad Zai Khan.
The meeting was called after reports of a large data breach in the telecom sector appeared in the media.
The PTA chief said that a report three weeks ago suggested Pakistani citizens’ information was circulating online. “Upon verification, we found that personal data of Pakistani citizens was indeed available there,” he told lawmakers.
He explained that the leaked information includes copies of national identity cards, travel records and mobile SIM details. He further revealed that even the data of people who had applied for Hajj had been compromised.
He stressed that SIM data is not stored in one central database but kept separately by each telecom operator.
He expressed concern over how scattered records ended up collected together and sold online. “What’s alarming is how this scattered data ended up collectively on the dark web,” he remarked.
According to him, a full data profile of an individual can be purchased for as little as Rs500.
The PTA chairman said the authority was still checking whether the leaked files were from an old breach or a new one. He confirmed that the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency is carrying out a detailed probe.
He added that the Ministry of Interior has also started its own investigation, following an earlier internal PTA inquiry in 2022.
Senator Afnan Ullah told the committee that data theft has become an organised trade worth billions of rupees. He said stolen records are compiled from different institutions and sold in bulk.
Committee chairperson Senator Palwasha Mohammad Zai Khan highlighted her own experience, saying fraudsters once contacted her about a pending bank payment, information that only the bank should have
known.
She questioned how such sensitive details had reached criminals.
The PTA chairman stressed that no telecom data had appeared on the dark web in the past two years, but warned of the urgent need for a national-level system to protect citizens’ information.
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