New Delhi: Hackers may have access to personal information of lakhs of train passengers. It is being told that after targeting AIIMS last month, the hackers have turned their attention towards the Indian Railways.
According to reports, the dark web has access to the booking information of 30 million passengers. No official statement has been made by the government or the Railways regarding the attack.
Indian Railways is the second government company to be attacked by hackers in the last two months. This raises some significant concerns about the security measures implemented by public sector organizations to protect user personal data. If this attack is genuine, it shows that India's most important institutions need to upgrade their cyber security.
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According to reports, there was a cyber attack on Indian Railways on 27th December. The data breach caused the Railways to lose personal information from 30 million customers who made reservations.
Personal data stolen from people includes their email address, mobile number, age, address and gender. The data also included several government email addresses, according to the attackers.
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After a hacker forum user was spotted selling railway user records, details of the cyber attack on the Indian Railways became public.
Although the user's identity is unknown, they go by the alias "Shadowhacker". The post also includes information on the loopholes used by them to attack the website. We do not yet know whether they targeted the Indian Railways website or the IRCTC booking portal.
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Indian Railways being the target of cyber attacks is not a new thing. IDs and other personal information of more than nine million ticket bookers in 2020 were stolen.