Ethical Hackers Dig Out TRAI Chief’s Personal Data, Deposits Re 1 In Bank Account Too

Twitter, over the past two days, has been raging, all thanks to a 12-digit Aadhaar number, that was made public by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman and a former CEO of UIDAI, R S Sharma. After posting his Aadhaar number, he challenged people on twitter to try and harm him by misusing the number.

What followed his tweet was a series of back and forths between the TRAI Chairman and ethical hackers who claimed to have revealed his personal data. However, UIDAI has since then released a statement on July 29 stating that no data has been fetched using UIDAI’s database. Here’s a look at what has happened till now:

R S Sharma’s challenge on Twitter
R S Sharma’s in a bid to quash a twitter users’ challenge that Aadhaar data is insecure, the former UIDAI Chairman published his Aadhaar no. on July 28. In the tweet, which probably flouts UIDAI norms as well, Sharma asked the twitter user to give one concrete example of the harm that could be done to him.

Sharma’s tweet received thousands of likes and shares, while some tech-savvy Twitter users and ethical hackers started digging personal information of Sharma and started posting his personal data on Twitter. According to News 18, by the evening of July 29, ethical hackers had managed to dig out 14 personal details which included his mobile number, PAN number, residential address, date of birth and even his current WhatsApp display picture. The hackers also claimed to have details of six banks accounts.