The Union Health Ministry and Chairman, Empowered Group on Vaccine Administration (EGVAC), on Saturday said the claim of the so-called hackers on the dark web relating to alleged data leak is baseless.

“We continue to take appropriate steps as are necessary, from time to time to ensure that data of the people is safe with CoWin,” R S Sharma, Chairman of the EGVAC, said.

The matter of the alleged hacking of the CoWin system was investigated by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), a government statement said.

On Thursday, there were reports doing rounds that Data Leak Market was offering to sell a database carrying details of 150 million people who had got themselves vaccinated against Covid-19 for $800.

The alleged database included name, location, Aadhaar number, phone number and location of people who had registered for the vaccines. The website had also claimed that it was not the original leaker of data, and that it was just a reseller. The EGVAC had then asked the CERT-In to investigate reports of hacking of the digital portal that is being used to register for vaccination across the country.

“Our attention has been drawn towards the news circulating on social media about the alleged hacking of CoWin system. In this connection, we wish to state that CoWin stores all the vaccination data in a safe and secure digital environment,” Sharma had said then.

He had added that none of the CoWin data is shared with any entity outside the CoWin environment. “The data being claimed as having been leaked such as geo-location of beneficiaries is not even collected at CoWin.”

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