The assertions of a 37.5 crore subscriber data breach have been flatly refuted by Airtel.
Security researchers have requested that the government enact the Data Protection Act in response to allegations of Airtel data hacking. The Act assigns the data protection authority, which has not yet been established, the duty of notifying and verifying any such breaches. The assertions of a 37.5 crore subscriber data breach have been flatly refuted by Airtel.
“There has been social media chatter around Airtel’s data breach due to an unauthentic data hacker claiming to have access to Airtel’s data. The hacker has not been able to provide any proof for his claim and is using this wrongly to tarnish brand image,” Airtel said in a clarification. An Airtel spokesperson added, “We are confirming that the data is secure, and no such breach has occurred. We have done a thorough investigation and can confirm that there has been no breach whatsoever from Airtel systems.”
Data security researcher Kodali Srinivas said, “The Airtel breach claim shows how important it is for the government of India to start implementing the Data Protection Act. With no data protection authority to independently verify these reported incidents of breaches, there is no way to confirm if there was a breach or not. Airtel is within its rights to deny these alleged breaches, but regulators need to verify these claims.”
On Friday, Kodali posted on ‘X’: “Airtel has been hacked by a China-based threat actor. He listed 37.5 crore Airtel customers’s data, including their Aadhaar numbers, for sale. The actor who listed this data for sale on breach forums is now suspended. India’s Data Protection Act is still not active (sic).”
However, Rahul Sasi, CEO of cybersecurity firm CloudSEK, said the threat actor “had gathered previously leaked data and was falsely claiming it to be a recent breach of Airtel’s database.”
He added, “Over the past few years, there have been numerous instances of millions of pieces of personally identifiable information (PII) being leaked from various providers. It’s important to note that it’s relatively easy to compile a database consisting of first names, last names, and phone numbers belonging to any service provider using publicly available data sets.”
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