Jairam Ramesh questions Centre after Cyberabad cops bust ‘biggest’ data theft

This is an attack on the privacy and security of Indians and we do not accept it at all. Centre should immediately clarify this matter, said Jairam Ramesh

New Delhi: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday questioned the Centre after the Cyberabad Police in connection with the “biggest” cyber theft arrested one person over procuring and selling personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore people and organisations.

On Saturday, the Cyberabad Police arrested one person over procuring and selling personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore people and organisations in 104 categories across 24 states and eight metropolitan cities of the country.

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Taking to Twitter, the Congress leader raised several questions and shared a news report. He asked, “How and why was the personal information of 67 crore people in India stolen? Who stole the data of the army and how?” He added, “This is an attack on the privacy and security of Indians and we do not accept it at all. The government should immediately clarify this matter.”

On Saturday, Cyberabad police tweeted, “Cyberabad police busted a data theft gang who has been involved in the theft, procurement, holding, and selling of personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore individuals and organizations across 24 states and eight metropolitan cities.” The Cyberabad police added, “the accused has been found to possess data from various sources, including Byjus, Vedantu, cab users, GST, RTO, Amazon, Netflix, Paytm, Phonepe etc. The accused was operating through a website called ‘InspireWebz’ based in Faridabad, Haryana, and was selling the database to clients.”

He stated, “The accused had been holding data from 135 categories containing sensitive information of government, private organizations, and individuals, and the police seized two mobile phones, two laptops, and the data during the arrest.”