EPFO data breached in 2018 'repackaged' by Chinese cyber agency: Report

Information leaked in an alleged Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) data breach in 2018 that impacted millions of Indians was found to have been 'repackaged' by a Chinese cyber agency, The Indian Express reported quoting a preliminary probe by India's cybersecurity agency. 

In 2018, however, the EPFO denied its systems were compromised after reports about the alleged data breach first surfaced. The EPFO said the vulnerability was exploited from the systems of Common Services Centres (CSCs). 

Indian government's response, action

A treasure trove of information was leaked on Github reportedly as part of documents related to Chinese cyber agencies, a senior government official told the news outlet. The official further said that this indicates that these agencies were either responsible for the initial breach or had acquired the compromised data after that. 

After this, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's (MeiTY) Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) sprung into action. CERT-In started a probe into whether the data in these documents was new or collated from the breaches in the past. 

As per the leaked information on Github, the leaked data claims that it information from across government and private Indian institutions. It claims to have data not related to EPFO but also that of BSNL users and information with companies including Tata Group-owned Air India and Reliance Industries. 

"CERT-In had carried out a preliminary probe into the claims and it appears that the EPFO data present in the documents is from 2018 when its systems were impacted," an official said. At the time of the data breach in 2018, a senior EPFO official noted the suspected data leak did not happen on the server or software run by the EPFO but on the CSC software. 

A CSC official, however, denied the claims and claimed the concerned application was on the EPFO server and the CSCs did not have anything to do with the incident whatsoever. Despite the blame game between the EPFO and the CSC in 2018, the CERT-In's findings confirm that the EPFO system was compromised in 2018. 

Rising cyberattacks against India

The revelations come amid a spate of rising cyberattacks against India, including cyberattacks on organisations like the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Taj Hotels, state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and BSNL. State-sponsored cyberattacks against India saw a massive 278 per cent increase between 2021 and September 2023, according to a report from November 2023.