March 29, 2022
Abir Ranjan Biswas’s Zero Hour mention on the breach of data of CISF personnel
Sir, my Zero Hour submission is relating to data breach in the CISF records. Sir, on March 6, 2022, the Central Industrial Security Force i.e., C.I.S.F. suffered data breach. Several internal documents and personal records of serving officers were freely accessible online for a number of days. The C.I.S.F. provides security services to more than 300 industrial units, Government infrastructure projects, facilities and establishment all over the country. It has more than 1.6 lakh members, making it one of the largest police forces in the world. Considering the scale of its operation and the nature of its work, any such data leak or breach can have severe and serious implications. Data that was leaked contained 2.46 lakh addresses of C.I.S.F. files and PDFs as well as health records and other personally identifiable records of C.I.S.F. personnel. Leak of such data is a gross violation of privacy and
an undeniable threat to national security. Records of such nature are usually put up for sale on unregulated dark web, as we know, where they can be bought for malignant purposes. This information should not be publicly
accessible. Considering the number of data breaches has quadrupled since 2020, it is very alarming with 9 large-scale breaches in 2021 alone, it is important that the Government take sincere note of this crisis. Sensitive and personal information cannot be vulnerable to leaks. It violates our citizens’ right to privacy and threatens the nation’s sovereignty
