Tech News Desk –Star Health, one of the largest health insurance companies in the country, is facing a big threat to its customers. Actually, the data of more than 31 million (3.1 crore) customers of the company has been stolen. Now the company itself has admitted that the data has been stolen. Star Health said it had been the target of a malicious cyberattack, which caused hackers to illegally access “certain data.” The incident was first reported last month, but at the time the company declined to comment pending an internal investigation. It is being said that now the company has filed a formal criminal complaint and informed the insurance and cyber security regulatory authorities about it. It is noteworthy that a report has claimed that hackers used Telegram chatbot to leak the company's data.

Star Health confirms data breach
In a statement to TechCrunch, Star Health said that it had indeed been targeted in a data breach incident. The company has now acknowledged the incident, nearly two weeks after it was first reported. The Chennai-based insurer also revealed that hackers were able to access “some data”, however, it reportedly did not share details on whether any customer data was breached. Star Health reportedly said that a forensic investigation into the incident is underway, led by independent cybersecurity experts. The company is said to be working closely with the government and regulatory authorities at every stage of the investigation. The publication quoted the company as saying that relevant authorities in the cyber security and regulatory departments have also been informed.

Data leaked through Telegram
Last month, Star Health suffered a massive data breach due to a cyber attack. According to the report, personal data of more than 31 million (about 3.1 crore) policyholders as well as more than 5.8 million insurance claims were stolen by hackers. Later, the data was leaked through the messaging platform Telegram. It is being said that hackers have used autonomous chatbots on the platform to leak data. The stolen data included information such as names, emails, phone numbers, PAN numbers, addresses, dates of birth, tax details, copies of identity cards, policy numbers, test results and medical diagnoses.

A few days later, Star Health filed a lawsuit against Telegram for allegedly helping it leak the company's sensitive data. The Madras High Court ordered the instant messaging platform to block any chatbots and websites in India that make the data available online. Additionally, Star Health also filed a complaint against software giant Cloudflare for providing services to websites that allegedly hosted the leaked data.

Size of stolen data 7.24TB
It is being said that sensitive data of millions of customers has been stolen in the data breach of Star Health. The stolen data was being sold online. According to a report, an alleged hacker known as xenZen claims to have accessed 7.24TB of data of over 31 million customers, and the data was reportedly listed for sale for $1,50,000. Additionally, smaller data sets containing 100,000 customer records were listed at $10,000 per set.

Hackers accused company official of selling data
The hacker also alleged that Star Health's Chief Information Security Officer Amarjit Khanuja “sponsored” the data leak and allegedly sold the information directly to them. According to the report, Khanuja sold sensitive information of about 31 million Indian customers, including salary and PAN card details, to Zenzen for $43,000.