Pakistan rejects U.S. report on religious freedom

New Delhi, Jun 3: Over 1 lakh scanned copies of Indians' national IDs, including Aadhaar, PAN card and passport, have been put on dark web for sale, cyber intelligence firm Cyble said on Wednesday.

The leaked data seems to have originated from a third party and not from the government system, according to a report by Cyble.

"We came across a non-reputed actor who is currently selling over 1 lakh Indian National IDs on the dark net. With such a low reputation, ideally, we would have skipped this; however, the samples shared by the actor intrigued our interest -- and also the volume. The actor is alleged to have access to over 1 lakh IDs from different places in India," Cyble said.

The personal data leaked by cyber criminals leads to various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage. Many criminals use the personal details in the IDs to win trust of the people over a phone call for fraudulent activities.

Cyber criminals leak personal data of 2.9 cr job-seeking Indians on dark web for free

The Cyble researchers acquired around 1,000 IDs from the seller and confirmed that the scanned IDs belong to Indians.

"Preliminary analysis suggests that the data originated from a third party, and no indication or artefact is indicating that it came from a government system. At this point, Cyble researchers are still investigating this further -- we are hoping to share an update soon," Cyble said.

The scanned ID documents indicate that the data may have been leaked from a company's data base in the segment where they have to comply with 'Know Your Customer' (KYC) norms.

"Cyble researchers have also learned about a surge in KYC and banking scams -- leaks such as this are often used by scammers to target individuals, especially elderlies," Cyble said.

The cyber intelligence firm has recommended people to refrain from sharing personal information especially financial information over phone, e-mail or SMS.

"Regularly monitor your financial transaction, if you notice any suspicious transaction, contact your bank immediately," the company said.

In May, Cyble showed two instances where personal data of 7.65 crore Indians have been put on sale in the dark web. In one instance, the seller claimed to have sourced data of 4.75 crore Indians from online directory Truecaller and in other, the seller claimed to have sourced from job websites.

Truecaller, however, had denied the claim of breach in its database.

May 12: Several Indians in the US, either on the H-1B work visa or Green Card having children who are American citizens by birth, are being prevented from travelling to India aboard the special repatriation flights being run by Air India amidst the coronavirus-linked global travel restrictions.

According to the regulations issued by the Indian government last month and updated last week, visas of foreign nationals and OCI cards, that provide visa-free travel privileges to the people of Indian-origin, have been suspended as part of the new international travel restrictions.

For some of the Indian citizens like the Pandey couple in New Jersey (name and place changed at request), it's a double whammy. Having lost their H-1B job, they have to go back to India within the stipulated 60 days as required by law. The couple has two kids aged one and six years who are American citizens.

In the wee hours of Monday, they had to return from Newark airport as Air India refused to give their kids a ticket to fly to India along with them, despite them having a valid Indian visa. The young mother and father are Indian citizens.

They said that the officials from Air India and (Indian) Consulate (in New York) were very cooperative.

Also Read: COVID-19: Top senators urge Trump to temporarily suspend all new guest worker visas, including H-1B

But they could not do anything as their hands were tied by the latest regulation issued by the Indian government, a shocked Ratna Pandey told PTI.

"I would like to urge the Indian government to reconsider their decision on the humanitarian basis," said the Indian national who has lost her job but could not leave the US within the stipulated 60 days to avoid any future visa complications.

She now plans to make an appeal to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to extend their stay.

Last month, H-1B visa holders, mostly Indians, launched a White House petition urging US President Donald Trump to extend their permissible stay from 60 to 180 days after job loss. However, there has been no decision from the White House so far.

While there is no official statistics of how many Indian H-1B visa holders have lost their jobs, it is believed to be substantial.

The US, due to the coronavirus pandemic, is experiencing an unprecedented unemployment rate and more than 33 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last two months. Given this massive job loss, Indians, who have lost their jobs, are unlikely to get one and thus many would have no other option but to travel back home.

In the case of single mother Mamta (name changed), the situation is graver as her son is just three-month old. Only she was given the ticket and the infant was not allowed to fly along with her because he carried an American passport.

"I would like to request the Indian government to let us fly back home. I don't want to stay in the US any longer," she told PTI hours after being prevented from boarding her hometown Ahmedabad-bound flight from Newark on Sunday.

"I am alone here. I don't have a relative here. It's a difficult situation," she said.

"Vande Bharat Mission is a humanitarian mission. But this is certainly inhuman," said Rakesh Gupta (name changed) from Washington DC.

An H-1B professional, Gupta has lost his job and needs to return to India within the stipulated 60 days. He and his wife, Geeta (name changed) being Indian citizens, received the confirmation of their seats in the flight but have been told that their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter cannot travel with them as she carried an OCI card.

"I don't believe this," he said.

Unlike the Pandey couple and Mamta, who had made the payment of USD 1,361 per ticket for their flight back home, Rakesh has not made the payment. Air India has said that the money would be refunded.

All the three Indian citizens requested the Indian government to help them travel back home by making necessary changes in the current regulations.

As per a recent government notification, all existing Indian visa holders, and visa-free travel facility, granted to OCI card holders who are not in India, have been suspended till restrictions on international air travel remains.

New York-based community leader Prem Bhandari said that the May 5 travel advisory has created multiple painful issues for the OCI card holders in the US and also to Indian citizens who are either on Green Card or H-1B visas and want to travel back home, but cannot leave their kids who are Americans by birth.

"We would like to express our disappointment with the discrimination between OCIs and citizens in respect of entering India at this critical stage when many OCIs have lawfully built their homes, families and businesses in India," Bhandari said in a letter to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Monday.

Wuhan, Feb 16: The death toll from China's coronavirus epidemic has climbed to 1,665 after 142 more people died, mostly in the worst-hit Hubei Province, and the confirmed cases jumped to 68,500, officials said on Sunday, as top WHO experts scramble to assist Beijing contain the virus spread.

China's National Health Commission confirmed 2,009 new cases across the country.

Hubei and its provincial capital Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, reported 1,843 of the new cases. The latest report brought the total confirmed cases in Hubei to 56,249 cases.

Of the new deaths, 139 were in Hubei, two in Sichuan, and one in Hunan, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The number of new cases, however, appears to have started dropping and a top Chinese health official has said efforts to control the outbreak have reached the “most crucial stage".

The report said 9,419 infected patients had been discharged from hospital after recovery so far.

The coronavirus has posed a severe threat to the medical staff as more than 1,700 Chinese health officials have been infected by the virus while treating the patients and six of them have died.

Experts from the World Health Organisation are expected in Beijing on Sunday to join Chinese health authorities in containing the virus, which has spread to several other countries forcing them to temporarily stop tourist arrivals from China.

The health commission said a joint mission with WHO experts will pay field visits to China's three provincial-level regions to learn the effectiveness of the epidemic control measures.

One task of the mission will be to come up with standard medicine to cure the disease, according to the health commission.

Several antiviral drugs are under clinical trials and Chinese researchers have narrowed down their focus to a few existing drugs, including Chloroquine Phosphate, Favipiravir and Remdesivir, said Zhang Xinmin, director of the China National Centre for Biotechnology Development.

Experts have asked people to frequently wash hands and face, and wear masks.

Authorities have begun quarantining large quantity of bank notes and coins in the affected areas and sanitising them with UV light before releasing them back into circulation to stop the virus from spreading.