Skip to main content
xYOU DESERVE INDEPENDENT, CRITICAL MEDIA. We want readers like you. Support independent critical media.

‘LPG Dealer Indane Leaked Millions of Aadhaar Numbers’

IANS |
French Security researcher, Baptiste Robert, in a blog post alleged that Aadhaar data of nearly 6.7 million dealers and distributors of Indane, accessible only with a valid username and password, was left exposed.
Leaked Millions of Aadhaar Numbers’

Image for representational use only. Image Courtesy : The Asian Age

New Delhi: A French researcher has claimed that he found a security lapse that allegedly exposed millions of Aadhaar numbers of dealers and distributors associated with Indane, an LPG brand owned by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

Baptiste Robert, who goes by the online handle Elliot Alderson and has exposed Aadhaar leaks in the past, wrote in a blog post on Medium late Monday that the Aadhaar data of nearly 6.7 million dealers and distributors of Indane, accessible only with a valid username and password, was left exposed.

"Due to a lack of authentication in the local dealers portal, Indane is leaking the names, addresses and the Aadhaar numbers of their customers," said Alderson.

Using a custom-built script to scrape the database, Alderson found customer data for nearly 11,000 dealers, including names and addresses of customers, before his IP was blocked by Indane.

"I wrote the python script. By running this script, it gives us 11,062 valid dealer IDs. After more than 1 day, my script tested 9,490 dealers and found that a total of 5,826,116 Indane customers are affected by this leak," he wrote.

The French researchers found 5.8 million Indane customer records before his script was blocked.

"Unfortunately, Indane probably blocked my IP, so I didn't test the remaining 1,572 dealers. By doing some basic math we can estimate the final number of affected customers around 6,791,200," Alderson added.

Indane and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) were yet to comment on this data leak.

Get the latest reports & analysis with people's perspective on Protests, movements & deep analytical videos, discussions of the current affairs in your Telegram app. Subscribe to NewsClick's Telegram channel & get Real-Time updates on stories, as they get published on our website.

Subscribe Newsclick On Telegram

Latest