The government said that reports of a breach of beneficiaries' data on the CoWIN platform were "mischievous" and "without any basis," and that the matter has been looked at by CERT-In, the country's top cyber security agency.
The CoWIN portal is totally protected with sufficient shields for information protection, the Health Ministry said in an explanation, adding an inward activity has been started to survey the current safety efforts.
CERT-In reviews matter
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), according to Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, responded immediately, and neither the Cowin app nor the database appears to have been directly compromised.
He claimed that when phone numbers were entered, a Telegram bot displayed information about the Cowin app.
"The data being accessed by bot from a threat actor database, which seems to have been populated with previously breached/stolen data stolen from past. It does not appear that Cowin app or database has been directly breached," the minister said.
The health ministry said there are reports asserting the breakage of information from the CoWIN gateway, which is a storehouse of all information about recipients who have been inoculated against coronavirus.
"It is clarified that all such reports are without any basis and mischievous in nature. Co-WIN portal of the Health Ministry is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy," it said.
It also stated that the CoWIN portal's security measures include a web application firewall, regular vulnerability assessments, and Identity and Access Management.
Also Read | WHO chief scientist hails India's key role in drugs manufacturing, vaccine development during COVID pandemic
Also Read | NTAGI panel takes up inclusion of Covid jab COVOVAX on CoWIN portal
