’Only 10% of data has Aadhaar details’: Dark web seller reveals information about data stolen from over 80 crore Indians

A massive data breach that involves over 80 crore Indian citizens was surfaced by an American cybersecurity agency called Resecurity. It claimed that data of around 81.5 crore Indian citizens was being sold on the dark web by a person with an alias ‘pwn0001’. A new report by MoneyControl claims that the data was purchased in bulk from another source on the dark web. It further states the database that contained sensitive information of 81.5 crore Indians was bought from a now-closed dark web forum last year for $50,000 (Rs 41.64 lakh).

The database was advertised as containing Aadhaar and Passport details of Indian citizens. However, pwn0001 says that only 10 per cent of the data includes Aadhaar details and only a few thousand records have passport details. The hacker revealed that he is now trying to sell this database for $80,000 to recover their investment. 

The cybersecurity agency Resecurity claimed that the hacker pwn0001 showed some spreadsheets in order to convince the buyer. These spreadsheets had pieces of Aadhaar data as proof. One of these pieces of data had details of 1,00,000 people living in India. The HUNTER team from Resecurity claims to have verified some Aadhaar Card IDs from this sample data.

According to the report, the seller of the leaked data, pwn0001 said, “The data was not as it was marketed. Only 10 per cent of the database has Aadhaar details and only few thousands have passport details.”

This incident comes at a time when India has passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. This law states that if a platform leaks personal data of any citizen then it can be fined up to Rs 250 crore. But this law has not been implemented yet.

Resecurity also reported another alleged breach in August that included 1.8 TB of data from ‘Indian internal law enforcement organization’, which contained personally identifiable information from Aadhar IDs, Voter IDs and driving license records. However, the Indian government has not confirmed or denied the data breach yet.

Read more: Data Breach of 81.5 crore Indians: Hacker allegedly leaks Aadhaar, passport, personal details on dark web

Also read: How to lock and unlock biometrics via Aadhaar app: Step-by-step guide