Data of 26 lakh Airtel users face breach

The 26 Lakh Airtel users, from Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) are facing breach as their personal data has been hacked and being sold for $3500 in Bitcoin on the web, independent cyber security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia said. The leaked data contain telephone numbers, addresses, Aadhaar numbers and other details, according to the screenshots and a video shared by Rajaharia.

"The hacker had access to the data and wanted to sell them, but could not succeed. Hence he dumped the data on the internet," Rajaharia claimed, adding the data may also have been leaked from any third-party source and not Airtel. The hacker who goes by the name of Red Rabbit Team, uploaded the details of Airtel users in January and aimed to "extort money" from the telecom giant, says Rajaharia.

Airtel, in a statement said that it "takes great pride in deploying various measures to safeguard the privacy of its customers".

"In this specific case, we confirm that there is no data breach at our end. In fact, the claims made by this group reveal glaring inaccuracies and a large proportion of the data records do not even belong to Airtel. We have already apprised the relevant authorities about the matter," the company said.

Rajaharia said the hacker had deleted the data dump in the previous web link but the same data are now available in another link.

"The hacker had dumped the data on the public forum and not on the Dark Web," said the researcher, who had recently exposed several hackers who compromised the data of Indian firms such as BuyUCoin and JusPay, among others.

Earlier, data of over two crore Bigbasket users were hacked in November last year and were on sale on the Dark Web for over $40,000 -- which is reported to be the handiwork of another hacker who goes by the name of ShinyHunters.