Data of over 6k desi firms up for e-sale

Seqrite Cyber Intelligence Labs, along with its partner seQtree InfoServices, tracked the ad where the unknown hacker has priced the information at 15 Bitcoins (nearly Rs 42 lakh) and is offering network takedown of affected firms for an unspecified amount, the company said. 

“This can be a major tool of mass disruption if a non-state actor gets hands on it,” Seqrite said on its website. The organisations whose services may be at risk are: UIDAI (Aadhaar), Idea Telecom, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Flipkart, DRDO, Aircel, Reserve Bank of India, BSNL, SBI, TCS, ISRO, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, VMWare, Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and various Indian state government portals, among others. 

Following a detailed investigation, researchers identified the affected organisation as India’s national Internet registry IRINN (Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers) which comes under the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). Seqrite reached out to the Centre and Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), recommending to them to alert all affected firms and urge them to change passwords and get their servers and systems patched with latest updates. 

The seller claims to have the ability to tamper the IP allocation pool, which could result in a serious outage or Denial of Service (DoS) attack-like condition.