Introduction– Welcome all of you I welcome you to Shockedyou.com. Recently you people must have listen this news that Aadhar data of 81.5 crores leak. Data theft has become a very common thing in this digital world but why this data leak is a very big threat to the privacy of Indian people we will discuss this in detail. Also this data leak is a big question mark on the data privacy of Indian Government. Let’s discuss this matter in detail-
But before discussing this data theft and leak you should know what Aadhar is-
Brief Introduction of Aadhar
According to the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) “Aadhaar is a 12 digit individual identification number which serves as proof of identity and proof of address for residents of India.”
In simple language Aadhar is an identity and address proof given to every Indian for availing various government services and benefits. Aadhar also contains bio metric details of a person which was taken during making of Aadhar.
In 2017 government of India made it mandatory to link there aadhar card with bank account so that no person can do money laundering and take unnecessary advantage of bank account.
After this Government of India went one step further and made this aadhar linking mandatory for PAN(permanent account number) also to curb usage of black money and it’s conversion.
Now you know what this unique number is let us come to our main topic of Aadhar data leak
Why this Data leak is a serious cause of worry?
When I first heard about this data leak this made be very worried because population of India is about 140.76 crores and if someone says to you that data of more than half a population is leaked then this is a serious cause of concern.
This data was on sold in dark web and one person was selling it on 80000 dollars. Many reports claim that this data leak took place from ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research). It means that the covid data which was with ICMR got leaked and that data was linked with aadhar number of every individual. In many cases even the address with pin code got leaked.
I will show you the american websites where people have put screenshot of aadhar data of Indian people. I will not show you the sensitive photos and blur them to show you the proof. Photo given below is a one such proof where Indian data is for sale in Dark web.
Big question on Data security of Indian Government
This issue raise a serious questions on Indian government also because Indian government always say that Uidai data is 100 percent safe and no person can breach the system to make a data theft.
Also we should not forget that bank account of every Indian is linked with Aadhar card and hackers can create a serious threat to the bank account of any individual with this leaked data.
Biggest data leaks in History
In past also we have seen many data leaks of private and government companies. The biggest data leak which took place in history was of Yahoo (search engine). In 2013 data of 3 billion people got leaked.
How aadhar data leak news came out?
There is a US based company Resecurity which recently published a report on how data of Indian people is on sale in Dark web. This news is more frustrating because our common people, media and government was totally unaware about it. When an foreign company Resecurity published an article on it then Indians came to know about it.
Now one more question must be arising in your mind that what is dark web. Dark web is a very vast topic we will discuss it some other day. For now just understand that dark web is a online place where all illegal activities take place.
Here are some of the screenshots which shows how data of Aadhar is on sale in dark web-
Pic 1(Below)– A person named PWN001 was selling data of Indians and it was wriiten in his post that “Indian citizens data contains many sensitive fields like Aadhar number, passport number etc. “
Pic 2 (Below)- Later on american investigator agency talked to PWN001 and asked him that what price he is selling this data, so he replied 80000 dollars. They also asked him whether he has sold it to somebody or not, so he replied “not yet”.
What Indian Government is doing now?
Indian government has setup a inquiry after this news has come out. ICMR is also conducting an inquiry whether this data leak is correct or not. To be very honest I am still in shock after seeing this big data theft.
What common people can do?
As you all know that Aadhar contains bio metric data of every individual. So first of all you should lock your bio metrics so that no one can misuse them to do any banking transactions.
Also you should never share your aadhar card in every place for the purpose of identification. Instead use voter Id or cards for the purpose of verification.
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Great article.
Thanks a lot Mohit for appreciating our efforts