A hacker claimed to have access to Airtel India customers database comprising details of 37.5 crore users. The database allegedly contains customers’ mobile numbers, date of birth, father’s name Aadhaar ID, email ID and more.
The hacker reportedly announced they were putting up the database for sale on a hacking forum at a going rate of $50,000 USD (Rs 41 lakh) to be paid in cryptocurrency.
The hacker who goes by the alias “xenZen“ further shared that the breach took place in June 2024 and reportedly shared a data sample.
Airtel, however, has denied the claims saying, “This is nothing short of a desperate attempt to tarnish Airtel’s reputation by vested interests”. The telecom operator further said it has conducted a thorough investigation and can confirm that there are no breaches in its systems.
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This is not the first time the hacker has claimed to have access to sensitive information of Indian citizens. Earlier, the same hacker was alleged to have been involved in a data breach targeting the diplomatic passport holder’s database maintained by the Union Ministry of External Affairs.
Earlier in 2021, a cybersecurity researcher had flagged that the details of over 2.5 million Airtel subscribers had been uploaded on a website of a threat actor, which was taken down only after three months. Airtel denied that any breach had occurred.
A breach in the database of customer’s personal information can have a far-reaching impact as threat actors can use personally identifiable information (PII) to launch a number of phishing attacks, perform identity theft and compromise financial security of individuals.
Published - July 05, 2024 04:09 pm IST
