Major Bank Breach Exposes Customer Identities and Credit Data
India’s state-owned Bank of Baroda (BOB) has experienced a major data breach after customer information and internal company documents were reportedly circulated on the dark web. The incident has sparked fresh concerns over cybersecurity in the banking sector, which holds data on millions of customers.
According to sources familiar with the matter and a cybersecurity researcher, Bank of Baroda customer data along with internal documents have been leaked onto the dark web.
Responding to the incident, Bank of Baroda stated it has initiated a digital forensic investigation and is cooperating with relevant authorities after implementing initial measures to contain the impact of the breach. The bank explained that the incident originated from a hacked employee email account. The hack led to unauthorised access to certain data. However, Bank of Baroda stressed that its core banking system was not affected. “The bank’s core banking system was not accessed and remains secure,” Bank of Baroda said in a statement.
Cybersecurity researcher and founder of Cashless Consumer, Srikanth L., said the leaked data includes customers’ personal information, identity documents, loan documents, and the bank’s internal audit records. It is not yet known exactly how many customers were affected by the breach.
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India and India’s cybersecurity regulator, CERT-In, have not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the incident. The leak comes amid growing concerns over cybersecurity threats faced by large corporations and financial institutions that store vast amounts of customer and business data.
According to Srikanth, the data began appearing on a dark web site on Saturday night. Based on metadata analysis of the site, the perpetrators advertised the stolen data as being over 700 gigabytes (GB) in size. The Bank of Baroda incident adds to a long list of cyberattacks targeting major companies in India. In June, a cyberattack on Apple supplier Tata Electronics led to the leak of component design documents and specifications related to Apple and Tesla onto the dark web. Earlier this month, the ransomware group World Leaks also uploaded a number of files on the dark web related to India’s largest nuclear power plant.