Company Star Health confirms data leak, says cyber attack happened last month

Star Health, the biggest health insurance company in India, confirmed that they had a cyberattack a month ago. When reports of a data leak and cyberattack came out last month, the company first denied that there had ever been a data leak; however now it has been confirmed.

The reports, however, said Star Health, in a statement, claimed to have become a target of an attack by a hacker in which "some data" was accessed illegally. Aggregating the incident relating to insurance and cyber security, the company has filed a criminal complaint, informally.

It was last month that this incident of leakage of the company's data by hackers using Telegram chatbots took place. This hacked data also includes the medical reports of the customers. The data was made publicly available via Telegram chatbots. The market capitalization of Star Health and Allied Insurance exceeds $4 billion.

Two chatbots provided the Star Health data. Users could click on one PDF to view the policy number, name, and other details, while the other provided them with those details. Hackers gained access to documents about the care that policyholder Sandeep TS's daughter received in a hospital of Kerala. Along with all the information, there was a Rs. 15,000 bill in it. This data belongs to Sandeep, he stated. Pankaj Subhash Malhotra, an insurance policyholder, had his data compromised by the chatbot the year before.