Airtel rubbishes breach allegations, says user data of customers safe

The hacker has reportedly put personally-identifiable details of 37.5 crore Indian people for auction with a base price of $50,000 (approx. Rs 41 lakhs) on the dark net.

India's second largest cellular service provider Bharti Airtel on Friday (July 5) denied reports of data breach in its company database in India.

Earlier this week, a X handle who goes by the moniker-- Dark Web Informer reported that a hacker xenZen is selling 37.5 crore user data of Airtel on the dark web.

The threat actor understood to be from China, is also said to be involved in breaching the diplomatic passport holders database run by the Union Ministry of External Affairs.

Now, xenZen has reportedly put personally-identifiable details of 37.5 crore people for auction with a base price of $50,000 (approx. Rs 41 lakhs) on the dark net.

Leaked details include --Name, birth date, Aadhaar number, father's name, local address, permanent residential address, alternate phone number, email ID, gender, nationality, cellular connection type (prepaid/postpaid), SIM activation date, and photocopies of govt-approved Photo ID proof and Address proof.

However, Airtel has vehemently denied the allegations. It has performed a thorough investigation and confirmed that there was no case of data breach. Assured, that the data of all its customers are fully secured. It claimed that the reports of data breaches were a malicious attempt to tarnish the brand's reputation.

"There has been an ongoing report alleging that Airtel customer data has been compromised. This is nothing short of a desperate attempt to tarnish Airtel’s reputation by vested interests. We have done a thorough investigation and can confirm that there has been no breach whatsoever from Airtel systems,” said Airtel Spokesperson

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