In what’s being described as probably the ‘biggest’ case of data leak in the country, personal details of more than 81.5 crore Indians, sourced allegedly from the Indian Council of Medial Research (ICMR), have been leaked online, as per a report in News18.
What happened?
The report noted that the leak was initially noticed by Resecurity, an American cyber security and intelligence agency. According to the cyber firm, a ‘threat actor’ with the alias ‘pwn001’ posted a thread on Breach Forums,– which describes itself as a ‘premier Databreach discussion and leaks forum’ – enabling entry to information of 815 million (81.5 crore) Indians.
For a perspective, that is round 10 occasions the complete inhabitants of nations like Iran, Turkey and Germany, the world’s seventeenth, 18th, and nineteenth most populous nations, respectively. India, then again, is the world’s most populous nation, with 1.43 billion folks.
What data has been leaked?
‘pwn001,’ with a deal with on X (previously Twitter), marketed Aadhaar and passport data together with names, cellphone quantity, and addresses; these, the hacker claims, had been extracted from the Covid-19 check particulars of residents registered with ICMR.
As a proof, ‘pwn001’ posted spreadsheets with 4 giant leak samples with fragments of Aadhaar information. Upon evaluation, these had been recognized as legitimate Aadhaar card IDs.
Remedial measures
While there isn’t a official response from ICMR or authorities, the report states that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is prone to probe the matter as soon as it receives a grievance from ICMR.
In addition to this, all the highest officers from varied businesses, in addition to ministries, have been roped in. Also, to manage the injury, the required Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been deployed.
Source web site: www.hindustantimes.com
