Telangana Cops Bust Major Data Theft: Several Netflix & Instagram Accounts, NEET Students’ Data Compromised

One person was arrested in a major data theft bust by Cyberabad Police. The accused was found selling confidential data of about 66.9 crore individuals and organisations across 64 states and 8 metropolitan cities.

Written by: India.com News Desk Edited by: Snigdha Choudhury

Updated: April 2, 2023, 12:19 PM IST

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The accused held consumer/customer data of major organisations like Netflix, Instagram, Big Basket, Instagram and several other organisations. (Photo: IANS)

New Delhi: A major data theft was busted by Cyberabad Police as it arrested one person involved in holding personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore individuals and organisations across 64 states and eight metropolitan cities. The accused has been identified as Vinay Bhardwaj.

The accused was found in possession of data of students from Byjus and Vedantu organisations, police said as per a report by news agency IANS. The accused also held consumer/customer data of major organisations like GST (Pan India), RTO (Pan India), Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, Paytm, Phonepe, Big Basket, BookMyShow, Instagram, Zomato, Policy Bazar, and Upstox, among others.

“Some of the important data held by the accused includes the data of defence personnel, government employees, PAN card holders, students data of 9th, 10th, 11 & 12th standard, 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,” the Cyberabad Police said.

Bhardwaj had established an office in Faridabad Haryana and collected databases from Amer Sohail and Madan Gopal, according to a report by news agency IANS. He used to promote social media platforms to resell the data to fraudsters for profits. Police found that the accused was operating through a website “InspireWebz” in Faridabad, Haryana and selling database to clients through cloud drive links.

The police seized two mobile phones and two laptops, and recovered data of 135 categories containing sensitive information of government, private organisation and individuals.

Bhardwaj, the accused person who has now been arrested, was found selling personal and confidential data of about 66.9 crore individuals and organisations maintained in 104 categories. This includes 51.9 crore data of individuals and organisations of 24 states and 8 cities maintained in 44 categories.