New Delhi: The Delhi Police has arrested four for allegedly advertising leaked data of Indian citizens on social media, ThePrint has learnt. The men were identified as part of an ongoing investigation into a data leak involving the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) reported two months ago.
According to police sources, it was suspected that the men were trying to sell the leaked ICMR data, following which the Delhi police launched a probe into the matter.
However, sources added that an initial investigation suggests that the four men, while they were trying to sell ‘leaked data’, may not have been involved in the leak itself or the sale of personal information of more than 81 crore Indians on the dark web.
“Initial investigation or questioning hasn’t thrown up any evidence that these men were involved in leaking ICMR data and selling it on the dark web. These men were picked up following inputs that they were putting up advertisements on social media claiming they had this personal data and were looking for buyers. They said they got those pamphlets from a third party,” said one police source.
“These men were arrested in the ICMR data leak case but we are still probing their exact role. They have claimed during questioning that they were supposed to meet someone for some data, however, that person’s role is currently unclear. The investigation is still at a very nascent stage,” the source added.
It is also learnt that investigators believe the data which the four suspects were advertising may have been forged.
The Delhi Police had taken suo motu cognisance of the data leak and registered an FIR. Two of the four arrested men are from Haryana, one from Odisha and another from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh.
US-based cyber security and intelligence agency Resecurity had claimed in October that personally identifiable information of about 81.5 crore Indians was leaked on the dark web. “On 9 October, a threat actor going by the name ‘pwn0001’ posted a thread on Breach Forums brokering access to 815 million ‘Indian Citizen Aadhaar & Passport’ records,” it said in the blog post a week later.
The cyber security firm also said when its HUNTER (HUMINT) unit investigators established contact with the “threat actor”, they found out that the hackers were asking for $80,000 to sell all of the leaked data. The “threat actor” also claimed the stolen data was derived from COVID-19 test records of Indians and allegedly sourced from the ICMR.
(Editing by Tikli Basu)
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