A purported hacker claims to have accessed and is offering for sale a substantial database linked to India’s eMigrate portal, which facilitates legal emigration for the country’s blue-collar workforce abroad.
Operated by India’s Ministry of External Affairs, the eMigrate portal facilitates emigration clearance, tracks applications, and provides insurance services for migrant workers. On a cybercrime forum known to TechCrunch, the hacker posted a partial dataset allegedly containing full names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, mailing addresses, and passport details of individuals registered on the portal.
TechCrunch verified the authenticity of some data entries published by the hacker, including phone numbers validated through a third-party app. Notably, one record pertained to an Indian government foreign ambassador, whose information matched publicly available data. Attempts by TechCrunch to contact the ambassador via WhatsApp went unanswered.
The origin of the breached data remains unclear — whether from direct server access or a previous security breach. The hacker did not disclose specific breach timelines but claims possession of over 200,000 entries from internal and registered users.
As of the latest update, India’s eMigrate portal reported granting emigration clearance to approximately half a million individuals in 2023.
In response to inquiries about the breach, India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) informed TechCrunch that it is “in the process of taking appropriate action with the concerned authority.” The Ministry of External Affairs of India did not respond to requests for comment.
This incident is the latest in a series of cybersecurity challenges facing the Indian government, following earlier reports by TechCrunch on a data leak from the government’s cloud service and the discovery of online betting ads embedded on government websites.