Madras HC reserves order in Star Health insuree data breach case

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court reserved the orders in a plea seeking probe against Star Health Insurance alleging that the management has sold several lakhs of sensitive personal data of the insuree to a hacker.

Justice M Dhandapani heard the petition moved by a cyber security researcher Himanshu Pathak alleging that the huge data breach against the insurance company and sought action.

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the insurance company had accepted that it had been victim to a cyber attack which resulted in unauthorised and illegal access to certain data. He sought the court to direct the Union government to initiate a probe into the issue.

The standing counsel for the Union government said that any inquiry into the incident can be conducted by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and not the government.

After the submission, the judge observed that orders would be passed on October 17 regarding the point of whether the Union government has the authority to conduct a probe into the incident.

Recently, Star Health Insurance was attacked by a cyber hacker as a result of which personal data including mobile numbers, PAN, addresses and pre-existing medical conditions of about 3.1 crore customers of the insurance company were allegedly made available on a website created by an unidentified hacker from China.

The hacker claimed that the Chief Information Security Officer of the insurance firm sold all the data.