Cyberabad Police Busts Massive Data Theft; Accused Stole Data of Nearly 70 Cr from Netflix, Amazon & More

Vinay Bhardwaj, an accused behind India’s biggest data theft was arrested by the Cyberabad Police for stealing, holding and selling of personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore individuals and organisations belonging to 24 states and eight metropolitan cities. He allegedly possessed data from various sources, including Byjus, Vedantu, cab users,GST, RTO, Amazon,Netflix,Paytm, Phonepe etc.

In a series of tweets, the Cyberabad Police divulged details of the data theft case. The accused was operating through a website called ‘InspireWebz’ based in Faridabad, Haryana, and was selling the database to clients, police said. His network was spread across 24 states and 8 metropolitan cities.

The accused was found possessing data of students of edu-tech organisations and also holds consumer/ customer data of major organisations like GST, Road transport organisations of various states, major eco-mmerce portals, social media platforms and fintech companies.

“The accused who was arrested on Friday was found selling personal and confidential data of about 66.9 crore individuals and organisations maintained in 104 categories,” it said.

The accused had been holding data from 135 categories containing sensitive information of government, private organizations, and individuals, and the police seized two mobile phones, two laptops, and the data during the arrest.

Some of the important data held by the accused includes the data of defence personnel, government employees, PAN card holders, data of 9th, 10th, 11 & 12th standard students, senior citizens, Delhi electricity consumers, D-MAT account holders, mobile numbers of various individuals, NEET students, high net worth individuals, insurance holders, credit card and debit card holders among others, the release said.

(With PTI Inputs)

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