Airtel denies claims that data of 2.5 million users was leaked

News Journals

4 years ago

Mumbai: Particulars of over 2.5 million Airtel subscribers have been accessible on a hacker group’s web site for about three months earlier than it was taken down on Tuesday, cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia flagged in a tweet, though the corporate denied that its information had been breached.

The web site by a hacker group figuring out itself as ‘Red Rabbit Team’ had particulars of Airtel clients — together with names, dates of delivery, telephone numbers, addresses, and Aadhaar IDs. They have been up on the market for bitcoin value $3,500.

ET was in a position to overview the info and likewise confirm a pattern of the telephone numbers, which have been discovered to be lively subscribers of the telecom operator.

Unbiased researchers, together with Rajaharia, additionally have been in a position to confirm that the info certainly belonged to Airtel subscribers. The truth is, a consumer had flagged the leak on the corporate’s Fb web page on 31 December, cybersecurity researcher Avinash Jain instructed ET.

“On this particular case, we affirm that there isn’t a information breach at our finish,” an Airtel spokesperson mentioned. “The truth is, the claims made by this group reveal evident inaccuracies and a big proportion of the info information don’t even belong to Airtel. We now have already apprised the related authorities of the matter.”

This isn’t the primary occasion when Airtel’s consumer information has been made susceptible.

In 2019, an impartial safety researcher found a flaw within the Utility Programming Interface of Airtel’s cellular app, which might have uncovered the info of 300 million customers. Airtel had then mentioned it mounted the flaw instantly.

“It’s sure that information has been leaked and it belongs to Airtel customers,” Jain mentioned. “Nonetheless can’t touch upon what’s the quantity, however on verification of the info posted by the hacking crew, it’s discovered to be true.”

Within the newest occasion, the info was leaked by way of what is called an internet ‘shell’ on Airtel’s database, based on the hacked web site and confirmed by the cybersecurity researchers. An online shell is often a malicious script or code that permits hackers entry to launch assaults utilizing a compromised net server.

Rajaharia mentioned common monitoring of servers and well timed updates to the working system might help safeguard firms towards such assaults.

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