Personal numbers of president, PM and ministers of Italy leak online

The personal phone numbers of Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, ministers and thousands of employees of key departments and security agencies have become publicly available, Report informs via Italian publications.

The leak was reported by cybersecurity expert and former Apple employee Andrea Mavilla, at whose instigation the Postal Police – the Interior Ministry’s online crime unit – and the Office for the Protection of Personal Data have launched an investigation.

It is noted that there are at least eight platforms that provide paid access to contact databases. This is the so-called lead generation – a marketing tactic aimed at finding potential clients and collecting their contact information.

Three portals located in Israel, Russia and the US were tested and a large database of 2,125 contacts related to the Prime Minister's Office, over 13,000 from the Ministry of Justice, almost 5,000 from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and over 11,000 from the Ministry of Defense was found there.