Airtel hits back at alleged threat actor, refutes data breach claims
Bharti Airtel has issued a statement denying the claims of data breaches on its servers. The telecom operator said that after a thorough investigation, it has found no evidence of a breach. It further claimed that the threat actor’s claim was a “desperate” attempt to tarnish the brand’s reputation. Earlier, multiple reports had claimed that the telecom operator had suffered a major data breach in which the sensitive information of 375 million Airtel customers was compromised and sold on the dark web.
Airtel refutes data breach claims
In a rackAirtel stated, “There is an ongoing report alleging that Airtel customer data has been compromised. This is nothing short of a desperate attempt to tarnish Airtel’s reputation by vested interests. We have conducted a thorough investigation and can confirm that there has been no breach of Airtel systems at all.”
The statement comes a day after several unverified reports claimed that a threat actor was identifying himself as “xenZen” on dark web forums. X (formerly known as Twitter) user Nicolas Krassas, whose LinkedIn profile suggests he works for Germany-based multinational company Henkel AG as Head of Threat and Vulnerability Management, posted a screenshot of a dark web forum showing a post from the threat actor.
In the screenshot, xenZen claims that they hacked Airtel’s database and gained access to customer details such as phone, email, address, Aadhaar and more. The attacker said that the data, which was allegedly updated till June 2024, was for sale. The person behind the account demanded $50,000 (approximately Rs. 4,174,000) for the alleged data.
However, no follow-up messages, screenshots, or sample data have surfaced to confirm the threat actor’s claims, even 24 hours after the said attack. It is noteworthy that dark web scammers often post sensational data breaches on forums to get others to pay. Once the payment is made, they share fraudulent data or disappear from the platform entirely. This could be one of those cases, but there is no way to prove it.
So far, Airtel has assured its customers that their data is safe and that there has been no data breach.
