Personal data of around 1 crore customers is feared to have been stolen from the server of the e-ticketing portal
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
(
IRCTC), thus raising fears of safety and security.
IRCTC is India's largest e-commerce website, lakhs of transactions are conducted every day. Customers provide details like Pan Card numbers while filling up online reservation forms.
According to a report in India Today, IRCTC officials also fear that details including phone numbers, date of birth and other such information "have been sold in a CD for Rs 15,000 for whosoever was interested."
An
IRCTC source said, "The data is a valuable asset and can be sold to corporations who may use it for targeting potential consumers."
There are also reports that the Maharashtra state government has identified the hackers who were selling these details.
AK Manocha, managing director of
IRCTC, told Mumbai Mirror that though there has been no official complaint regarding data hacking he has written to Delhi police's cyber cell to inquire into the matter.
When asked why there was no complaint, Manocha said, “We got some information from our internal sources. So we decided to crosscheck.“ The IRCTC (
Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation) website has a user base of over 1 crore, and at least 5 lakh tickets are booked on daily basis. To log in and book tickets, each user has to create an account, parting with information of his email id and mobile number. The fear among the authorities is that the hacker could have access to at least 1 crore email IDs and mobile numbers. The data will command a huge price among companies in the era of aggressive tele-marketing. Sources said that it is unlikely that credit card or bank data would have been compromised, since the payment gateway takes one out of the
IRCTC website to the sites of the banks, which have more watertight firewalls.
The state's additional chief secretary (home), KP Bakshi, earlier confirmed to TOI that the state police had alerted the railways, but refused to give any more details.
IRCTC website is maintained by Centre for Railway Information Systems, which is part of the railway ministry.