Hacker Alleges Airtel India Data Breach, Putting 375 Million Users at Risk || Airtel Denies the Breach

Highlights

• A hacker on the dark web claimed a massive Airtel data leak involving 375 million users.

• Airtel India has strongly denied the allegations.

• The hacker claims to be behind the Indian Ministry of External Affairs data leak as well.

Airtel India has vehemently denied claims of a massive data breach, which alleged that the data of 375 million Indian users was up for sale on the dark web. Airtel has reiterated that its users’ private information is safe and all such claims are fake.

“Based on preliminary investigation, we can confirm that there has been no data breach whatsoever of Airtel’s system,” an Airtel spokesperson told 91mobiles.

Per Dark Web Informer on X.com, an agent named xenZen was claiming to sell a dataset of 375 million Airtel India users on a community called BreachForums, which included details like name, family information, contact details, Aadhaar information, etc.

Incidentally, the seller claimed to be behind the recent Indian Ministry of External Affairs data leak as well. That leak was spotted towards the end of last month and reportedly consisted of around 200,000 user data records from the ministry’s eMigrate portal. However, the authenticity of the hacker’s claims hasn’t been established in either case.

Even though the strictest security practices are in place to keep private information secure, data breaches can occur and here’s what you can do to keep yourself safe:

Things to Do if Your Personal Data is Compromised Online

Check if your data appears compromised: Use sites like Have I Been Pwned.

Change passwords of the compromised online accounts.

Set up 2-factor authentication: Use Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Twilio Authy, or built-in tools on these platforms.

Monitor your financial accounts and passbook.

Be cautious of phishing or spam messages and emails