Qatar Bank Hack Leaks Royal Family, Al Jazeera Data

A massive hack attack on Qatar National Bank has taken the Gulf country by storm leaking the names, bank passwords and other sensitive data of the Qatari royal family members, alleged intelligence agents and Al Jazeera staff.

Qatar National Bank said it was investigating 'an alleged data breach' after a file that appears to contain account information began circulating online.

The 1.4GB file contained names, phone numbers, bank accounts and passwords, payment card data, PINs and other sensitive information of customers of the bank.

(pc- google images)

The data dump had nine main folders named “Al Jazeera”, “Al-Qardawi”, “Al-Thani”, “Banks, corporations”, “Defence and etc”, “Gov”, “Mukhabarat”, “Police, Security” and “Spy, Intelligence”.

The  “SPY, Intelligence” folder included an array of records listed as Ministry of Defense, MI6 (the British intelligence agency) and Qatar's State Security Bureau known as Mukhabarat.

The newspaper said the MI6 file is found next to similar files relating to Polish and French intelligence and contains the in-depth report of alleged agents including the names of close relatives, phone numbers, credit card information and social media accounts.

A number of Al Jazeera staff said that the data found in their section of the leak is mostly accurate. Al Jazeera reporter, Bernard Smith, said,“The details they had for me were mostly correct – I had changed my credit cards just a few months ago after losing them, but other information such as my passwords and contact details were all accurate. I was very shocked to see my details online.”

The Qatar National Bank has released a statement saying that the leak had no financial impact on their clients or the bank, and that they are investigating the matter “in coordination with all concerned parties.”