Indian Telecom Regulators Leak 1.1 Million Email Addresses of Citizen Commenters

“The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India dumped more than a million Indian netizens' traceable personal details online,” after choosing to publish “in full” the comments it received in response to a net neutrality report, according to the Register. The data dump, or “doxing” of personal information, was part of an attempt at government transparency.

Accompanying the responses were more than 1 million email addresses and names of those commenting.

“The dump potentially hands e-crims some very juicy details with which to phish and spam an enormous number of accounts with some certainty regarding the personal interests and location data of those targeted,” the Register reports.

Indian citizens tweeted their outrage after the doxing.  

And then the inevitable retaliation against the regulator ensued. Hacktivists, perhaps affiliated with Anonymous, flooded the government site with bogus traffic to shut it down.