The personal information of Reliance Jio subscribers, including Aadhaar numbers, was leaked to a website on Sunday. This is the latest in a slew of data breaches and online attacks that have exposed the weak state of India’s cyber security.
If a Reliance Jio mobile number is keyed in on ‘magicapk.com’, it throws up details such as first name, second name, email ID, SIM activation date and time, as well as Aadhaar number, if the subscriber has used it as proof to get the connection.
Anand Prakash, one of the top ethical hackers in the country informed media that there is either a bug in Reliance Jio’s system because of which data is getting leaked and a hacker is using it in the backend, or it could be a breach.
Another ethical hacker Kanishk Sajnani also said the website revealed information of the two Jio mobile numbers he tried.
The company said data is only shared with authorities as per their requirement. Prakash further said that he has tried reaching out to Reliance Jio earlier as well about cyber security, but there was no response from the company.
The country’s total telephone subscriber base was 1,194.58 million as of March 2017. Jio’s subscribers have spiked after its debut in October, when it offered free SIM cards and unlimited 4G internet. However, the rate at which it added new subscribers declined in April. On March 31, it began paid service.
By Baishakhi Dutta