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Details, including Aadhaar number, passport number, name, age, gender and address of 4 lakh citizens, are already uploaded as sample files on the dark web by the hacker named 'pwn0001' who is auctioning the 90 GB data extracted by him from ICMR servers on October 9, claimed cyber experts. This incident which was first-discovered by American cyber firm Resecurity on October 10 could potentially be the largest data breach in Indian history.
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"Data breaches, especially those involving health and financial data of citizens, are deeply concerning," the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) said in a statement.
With more government agencies and companies hoovering up greater volumes of data now than ever, data leaks are almost inevitable. Any entity collecting such data should use data-centric security and deploy zero-trust protocols. Without a data security plan, we will continue to see sensitive personal information like health and financial data being breached. This will lead to identity theft and other costs amounting to billions, said Mishi Choudhary, Technology Lawyer and Online Civil Rights Activist.
"A swift probe and transparency from the ICMR and MEITY are essential to maintaining public trust," Choudhary added.
The All India Trinamool Congress also took to X (formerly Twitter) to highlight that this was not the first data breach incident from the government's data storage infrastructure.
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"Why were the people not promptly informed about the potential risks to their personal information?," the party said in the post. As for the latest ICMR breach, the data in the sample files extracted from the dark web by digital fraud detection firm mFilterIt on Monday has been independently verified by ET as accurate.
"We tried contacting the hacker who is still active and willing to sell the data to the single highest bidder. This is definitely a ransomware attack and the ICMR or the government should already be negotiating to protect this extremely sensitive data concerning national security," said Dhiraj Gupta, cofounder, mFilterIt.
This attack also follows last year's incident with AIIMS which suffered a loss of 1.3 TB data containing 40 million records in November 2022. The hackers allegedly demanded Rs 200 crore in cryptocurrency as ransom from the Delhi hospital. Experts believe ICMR's ransom call could go beyond Rs 1,000 crore. According to reports the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and CERT-In are already investigating the breach which came to their notice on October 10.