The Indian health ministry has denied reports of a major leak of personal data from its Covid vaccination database.
In a statement it said “all such reports are without any basis and mischievous in nature”, but it has ordered an official investigation into the matter.
The health ministry’s CoWin database contains the personal details of millions of people.
There does, however, appear to be some disagreement within the Indian government over the alleged data breach.
The Minister of Electronics and Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, released a statement via Twitter saying an initial investigation had already indicated that there had been a leak of CoWin data.
He said that a bot, accessible via the Telegram messaging service was “throwing up CoWin app details upon entry of phone numbers”.
He said that a bot, accessible via the Telegram messaging service was “throwing up CoWin app details upon entry of phone numbers”.
Mr Chandrasekhar said initial investigations by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (IndianCert) had found that the data of millions of Indians that had been “previously breached or stolen” from the Covid vaccine database, had been accessible.
