- India’s leading insurance provider, Star Health, was recently compromised.
- The data of more than 31 million people were leaked, samples of which are available for free on Telegram.
- Stolen data includes personal information such as names, phone numbers, and addresses as well medical details such as test results, diagnosis, policy number, claim history, etc.
Star Health, one of the largest insurance providers in India, has been compromised in a cyberattack, exposing data from 31 million people. Jason Parker, a UK-based researcher reported that the stolen data includes the following:
- Sensitive medical reports
- Policy details
- Claim information
- Medical diagnoses
Apart from that, personal information such as names, phone numbers, addresses, tax details, and copies of IDs are also available. Overall, there are at least 7.24 terabytes of data.
He also said that all of this data is available for free through chatbots on Telegram which were created by a user named “xenZen” for users to request to view or download the stolen data. But these are just the samples, the real data is available for sale.
The bot has been operating since August 6. There’s also a welcome message that read, “If this bot gets taken down, watch out; another one will be made available in a few hours.“
Initially, many of the chatbots were taken down by Telegram after many users reported them as scams. The company said that there’s no place for sharing personal information without consent on the platform. However, as the bot promised, many new bots have started popping up since then.
Right now, there are two active chatbots offering Star Health data – the first one allows you to request up to 20 samples while the other one offers simple samples in PDF.
How Did the Incident Come to Light?
The creator of the chatbot informed a security researcher who in turn alerted the Reuters news agency. To verify the news, the agency itself posed as a buyer and downloaded some 1,500 files containing data of affected users.
The authenticity of the stolen data has been confirmed by the victims as well. For example, policyholder Pankaj Subhash Malhotra’s claim was leaked which included details of test results, images of the results, federal tax accounts, national IDs, and more. He later confirmed all the data to be accurate.
Then, this “xenZen” also sent an email to the agency, informing them that they were already in talks with buyers for the data.
But who these buyers are and why they are interested in this data is yet to be known. We are also not sure how exactly this user got access to such sensitive data.
What Does Star Health Have to Say About This?
The company has acknowledged the issue and is working with the authorities to minimize the damage. In its initial investigation, it said that no sensitive customer information was compromised and that the breach wasn’t widespread. But as we can see now, neither of these statements are true.
The incident has already been reported to Tamil Nadu’s cybercrime department and federal cyber security agency CERT-In.
The insurance provider also assured its customers that their data is of paramount importance to them and that such illegal acquisition and distribution will not be tolerated.
