Nagaland, Bihar, Haryana Students’ personal database on sale on Amazon; Serious data breach

In what may be termed as a serious personal data breach, a seller on Amazon (India) has Nagaland students database (Class XII, CBSE, 2019-2020) on sale consisting of student’s name, father’s name, address, contact numbers, emails, school names etc.

The seller, ‘Shastri Nagar Charkya Puri’, under product description is selling the data in Excel format where buyers will be send the link to download once the product is purchased. Ukhrul Times could identify Bihar and Haryana students database on sale at the time of filing this report.

The major concern was flagged by SM watchdog forum, according to an individual in Manipur. Students’ sensitive personal information can be easily made available to fraudsters. It can be suspected that breach of vital personal data could already have made inroads to such fraudulent elements such as his/her personal information, email address, contacts, address, family information without the consent of the person or authorized state Educational Boards or institutions. State government should take precautionary measures to stop the racket.

Although such sale and purchase of database happens often illegally and in the dark web, it is shocking to know that Amazon is allowing to sell such sensitive details for sale on their platform. It can be termed as a breach of security and Amazon is felicitating such actions.

The question also arise as to how Amazon onboards new sellers on their platform, and what kind of products, qualifications are allowed to be sold on Amazon.

In the product details, it is mentioned that the product is sold by one ‘Shastri Nagar Charkya Puri’ entity which is a name of a location in Meerut, Utter Pradesh. The question here is how Amazon allow such seller without Company/Proprietor name  to be listed on their platform.

At the time of filing the news, the recently launched product is still available. CLICK LINK

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