The Centre on Thursday, 10 June refuted reports of CoWin platform hack that led to an alleged leak of the personal details of millions of citizens who have registered on the platform for COVID-19 vaccination, saying that the claims “prima facie appear to be fake.”
The government's clarification came after the website Dark Leak Market on the dark web allegedly shared a post about selling information of 150 million citizens, which allegedly includes their names, mobile numbers, Aadhaar Card numbers, and location.
“We are not the original leaker of data. We are the reseller,” the website read.
What is Dark Web?
The dark web is a hidden collective of internet sites only accessible via specialized web browsers. It is used for keeping internet activity anonymous and private, which can be used in both legal and illegal applications.
What Has the Centre Said?
The Centre took to Twitter via the official handle of Aarogya Setu to say that “out of abundant precaution, emergency response team of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is investigating the matter.”
It pointed out that the data speculated to have been leaked, such as geo-location of beneficiaries, is not even collected on Co-WIN.
“All data on COWIN is stored in a secure digital environment and is not shared with anyone outside of it,” the Centre said.
RS Sharma, who heads the Co-WIN portal, said that CoWIN “stores all the vaccination data in a safe and secure digital environment.”
“Our attention has been drawn towards the news circulating on social media about the alleged hacking of CoWIN system. In this connection, we wish to state that Co-WIN stores all the vaccination data in a safe and secure digital environment. No Co-WIN data is shared with any entity outside the CoWIN environment. The data being claimed as having been leaked such as geo-location of beneficiaries is not even collected at CoWIN. The news prima facie appears to be fake. However, we have asked the Computer Emergency Response Team of MeitY to investigate the issue,” he said, as quoted by Moneycontrol.
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