In what’s being described as perhaps 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 cotton on Breach Forums,– which describes itself as a ‘premier Databreach discussion and leaks forum’ – enabling get admission to to data of 815 million (81.5 crore) Indians.
For a standpoint, that is round 10 occasions the total population of nations like Iran, Turkey and Germany, the arena’s seventeenth, 18th, and nineteenth maximum populous international locations, respectively. Republic of India, at the alternative hand, is the arena’s maximum populous nation, with 1.43 billion community.
What data has been leaked?
‘pwn001,’ with a deal with on X (previously Twitter), marketed Aadhaar and passport data in conjunction with names, telephone quantity, and addresses; those, the hacker claims, have been extracted from the Covid-19 take a look at main points of voters registered with ICMR.
As an evidence, ‘pwn001’ posted spreadsheets with 4 immense scatter samples with fragments of Aadhaar information. Upon research, those have been known as legitimate Aadhaar card IDs.
Remedial measures
Month there’s no reputable reaction from ICMR or govt, the file states that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is more likely to probe the topic as soon as it receives a grievance from ICMR.
Along with this, all of the lead officers from diverse businesses, in addition to ministries, were roped in. Additionally, to keep watch over the wear and tear, the specified Usual Working Process (SOP) has been deployed.
