Hackers steal 8 million citizens’ records from Danish government database

The Danish government has disclosed that its central database containing citizen records was hacked, resulting in the theft of personal information for approximately 8 million individuals. This includes people residing in Denmark as well as those living abroad and the deceased. In a statement, Danish minister Christina Egelund described the breach of the Central Person Register (CPR) as a "serious incident," which enabled hackers to obtain sensitive data.

The CPR database contains personal information such as government-issued identity numbers for tax purposes and accessing services. Although Denmark's population is around 6 million, the database includes records for about 11 million people, with some data dating back decades. The government has not disclosed the identity of the attackers, who gained unauthorized access in September but were only discovered on October 2.

The unauthorized entry was reportedly achieved by "abusing a Danish company's lawful access to search for information in the CPR system." The breach is considered the most significant in the country's history. This incident follows similar cyberattacks on government databases, such as a 2016 breach affecting millions of Turkish citizens and data leaks involving national ID cards and information from India's national Aadhaar database.