The IT Minister of State Sanjay Dhotre denied that the user data stored with the BHIM app had been breached. In June, VpnMentor had claimed that over 7 million records of BHIM UPI app users had been breached and the compromised information included scans of Aadhaar cards, caste certificates, proofs of residence, PAN cards, etc. Dhotre’s response in Lok Sabha was in response to a question raised by BJP MPs Tejasvi Surya and Prathap Simha on Wednesday. 37 govt websites have been hacked in 2020 so far Dhotre also revealed that 54 government websites — both central and state — had been hacked in 2019. 37 such websites had been hacked in 2020 (until August). Between January and August 2020, 14 instances of insecure data hosting of government website-based services were also reported. In July 2020, the Department of Telecommunications had reminded all government websites and portals that come within the ambit of the Department of Telecommunications — which includes websites run by NIC, all websites run by agencies and units within the DoT including MTNL, BSNL, TCIL, ITI Limited and BBNL — to submit a valid security audit certificate for their website. The original deadline was October 31, 2019 but even more than eight months after the deadline had passed, “the requisite information [was] still awaited”. The memo was issued in 2019 after data was exfiltrated from one of the web portals of the Department that did not have a valid security audit certificate. Phishing incidents, e-commerce frauds, financial…
