Cyberabad Police have arrested seven people allegedly involved in the theft and sale of sensitive data of government officials and organisations, including 2.55 lakh defence personnel as well as the personal and confidential data of about 16.8 crore citizens across the country.
The seven arrested were of a gang involved in selling more than 140 different categories of information, which included mobile numbers of people and NEET students, Cyberabad Police Commissioner M Stephen Raveendra told reporters in Hyderabad on Thursday. They had sold data to at least 100 fraudsters, who used it for committing cyber crimes.
The accused were operating through three call centres in Noida and other places and were arrested from Delhi.
"This will have serious national security implications. The data of defence and government employees can be used for espionage; to impersonate them and commit serious offences that may jeopardise national security. We are in the process of finding out how this data got leaked and who are the insiders who are doing it," he added.
The accused sold data through a contact details directory service provider and similar platforms and had sold data of 50,000 citizens for as low as Rs 2,000, police said.
Notices will be sent to the service providers and they will be examined and legal action will be initiated against them also, police said.
"When any individual calls the toll-free numbers of service providers for any sector or category related confidential data of individuals, their query is listed and sent to that category of service providers. Then these fraudsters contact the clients and send them samples. If the client agrees to purchase, they make payment and are provided the data," police said, explaining the modus operandi.
The accused had aggregated the data leaked from different organisations and, having registered themselves as service delivery agents, sold the data to cyber criminals, police said.
Data sold with consent, but without people’s knowledge
DCP (Cybercrime Wing) Ritiraj said a complaint was lodged with the Cyber Crime wing of Cyberabad Police about the sale and purchase of confidential and sensitive data, even as police had also been investigating how cyber criminals were getting access to data. Police have been working on the case for the past two months.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crimes) Cyberabad Police Kalmeshwar Shingenavar said that during investigations it was found that private organisations are collecting data both with consent and without the knowledge of individuals. There is no data privacy or protection policy offered by most of these private organisations who possess and process the data of individuals, he said.
The accused were also found selling information in categories such as Energy and Power sector, PAN card data, Government employees, Gas and Petroleum, HNIs (High Net-worth Individuals), demat accounts, student databases, women databases, data of people who have applied for loans and insurance, and credit card and debit card holders (of private banks), WhatsApp users, Facebook users, IT organisation employees, frequent flyers etc.
The data of NEET students, with their names, mobile number and their residential address, was also found with the accused. A PAN card database containing sensitive information on the income, email ids, phone numbers, address of citizens was also found.
As many as 1.2 crore WhatsApp users and 17 lakh Facebook users had also been targeted in the data theft, police said. Police also found data pertaining to two crore students, 12 lakh CBSE Class 12 students, 40 lakh jobseekers, 1.47 crore car owners, details of 11 lakh government employees and 15 lakh IT professionals among others.
Further, a mobile number database of three crore individuals, probably leaked from telecom service providers, was also found, the Commissioner said.
The sensitive data that has been leaked can be used for unauthorised access to important organisations and institutions. The data related to PAN card can be used to commit serious financial offences. It is being used to commit a large number of cyber crimes whereby the perpetrators gain the confidence of victims by disclosing such information, police added.
(Including agencies inputs)
Also read: India sufferred second-highest data breaches in 2022 with 450 million records exposed: Report
(Edited by : Pradeep John)
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