You are reading it here first: Between January and June 2021, 30 data breach incidents were reported to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, a response to an RTI filed by MediaNama has revealed. This new disclosure by the nodal agency comes after incidents at Pine Labs, Dominoes, Air India, etc., have compromised the data of millions of Indians in the last few months. As per the information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT- In) a total number of 30 suspected data breach incidents observed during 01.01.2021 to 30.06.2021 — RTI response CERT-In also revealed that it has taken cognisance of the breach at Pine Labs and said that the matter was currently under investigation. Earlier this year, a petition was filed in the Delhi High Court alleging inaction by CERT-In against various cybersecurity incidents reported to it. Meanwhile, India is still awaiting its new National Cyber Security Strategy which has been in the works since 2019. What took place at Pine Labs? Pine Labs is an Indian merchant company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology. In August, Pine Labs was attacked by a ransomware group called BlackMatter which has emerged as a new hacking group that extorts huge sums of money. According to an investigation by Cyble Research Lab, 5,00,000 unique records including sensitive information such as phone, name, and email ids were accessed. In its response, CERT-In said that it had published an advisory regarding data breaches in January 2021 which contained recommended best practices such…
