ABFRL investigates data breach of customer and employee information

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jan 17, 2022

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited is investigating a data breach on its portal with forensic security experts. The breach saw over 5.4 million email addresses and phone numbers from its database published online. 

The business has stated that its business and operations will neither be affected by the data breach nor the subsequent enquiry. The email addresses were made public by a group of hackers named ‘ShinyHunters’, ET Bureau reported. 
 
“ABFRL is investigating an information security incident that entailed unauthorised access to its e-commerce database,” a spokesperson for the Aditya Birla Group business said in a statement, the Press Trust of India reported. “As a pro-active measure, the company has reset passwords of all customers and enabled OTP based authentication and taken further steps to secure access to customer and employee information.”

According to reports, the published data also included personal customer information including names, phone numbers, dates of births, addresses, order histories, credit card details, and passwords. The wide breadth of information shared means customers could be at risk of further issues if others use the information for fraudulent purposes. 
 
The data breach also shared ABFRL employee information including salary details as well as personal details ranging from religion to marital status. ABFRL runs a wide range of fashion brands and has a store network of 3,264 outlets across India across around 26,841 multi-brand outlets, according to the business.