Indias Biggest Data Leak So Far Covid19 Test Info of 815Cr Citizens With ICMR Up for Sale Exclusive News18

pReported By Ankur SharmappEdited By Apoorva MisrappNews18comppLast Updated October 30 2023 1050 ISTppNew Delhi IndiappA threat actor with a handle on X formerly Twitter has advertised the database in the breached forum on dark web which involves records of 815 million Indian citizens with Aadhaar and passport along with the names phone numbers and addresses GettyppIn what is suspected to be the biggest data leak case in the country so far details of 815 crore Indians with the Indian Council of Medical Research ICMR are on sale ppGiven the grave nature of the incident Indias premier agency Central Bureau of Investigation CBI is likely to probe the matter once ICMR files a complaintppA threat actor with a handle on X formerly Twitter has advertised the database in the breached forum on dark web which involves records of 815 million Indian citizens Aadhaar and passport information along with names phone numbers and addresses The threat actor claimed the data extracted from the Covid19 test details of citizens was sourced from ICMR ppICMR has been facing multiple cyberattack attempts since February and central agencies as well as the council were aware of it Over 6000 attempts were made last year to hack ICMR servers The agencies had also asked ICMR to take remedial action to avert any data leak sources said ppA query calls and messages sent to ICMR DG on Saturday remained unanswered and his response is awaitedppIt has been learnt that CERTIn has informed ICMR about the breach and the verification of sample data which is on sale matches with the actual data of ICMR after which all agencies were ropes in ppConsidering the sensitivity of the matter all the top officials of different agencies and ministries have been roped in Sources said as foreign actors are involved in the leak it would be important to get it probed by a premier agency At present remedial measures have been taken and the required SoP has been deployed to control the damage ppSources confirmed to News18 that the epicentre of leakage has not been identified as parts of the Covid19 test data go to the National Informatics Centre NIC ICMR and Ministry of HealthppAccording to American cyber security and intelligence agency Resecurity which initially noticed the leak a threat actor going by the alias pwn0001 posted a thread on Breach Forums on October 9 brokering access to 815 million Indian Citizen Aadhaar Passport records To put this victim group in perspective Indias entire population is just over 1486 billion people ppPwn0001 shared spreadsheets containing four large leak samples with fragments of Aadhaar data as proof One of the leaked samples contains 100000 records of PII related to Indian residents In this sample leak HUNTER analysts identified valid Aadhaar Card IDs which were corroborated via a government portal that provides a Verify Aadhaar feature This feature allows people to validate the authenticity of Aadhaar credentials Resecurity said ppThis is not the first time that Indias health system has been targeted by hackers ppLast year AIIMS faced a cyberattack that triggered changes in various systems News18 had reported earlier that the attack had links to one of Indias neighbouring countries as agencies had found an IP address originating from thereppTrouble began on November 23 when the servers went down affecting the outpatient department OPD and sample collection services After a few days AIIMS had to finally restart its OPD through online bookingp