A hacker gained access to personal information on approximately 8.8 million people registered in Denmark's national population registry after using what he claims was one of the world's simplest passwords: 123456.
According to reports, the breach was carried out through an account belonging to a former employee of Faxe, a Danish computing company that held legitimate access credentials to the government database. At least three accounts at the company, including an administrator account, used the same weak password.
The hacker exploited the access to conduct approximately 14 million searches in the registry during September, obtaining names, addresses and personal identification numbers for roughly 5.5 million living individuals and an additional 3.3 million deceased persons.
The breach came to light after government officials noticed an unusual billing charge resulting from the massive number of queries executed through the company's access. The hacker claimed he has no intention of selling or publishing the information he obtained.
Danish authorities confirmed the security breach but have not yet officially verified the hacker's claim that the password 123456 enabled the intrusion. Security experts warned that the exposed information could be used for fraud and identity theft.
