New Delhi: Hackers appear to have stolen data from the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), which manages over Rs 8.5 lakh crore in pension funds, by burrowing through an Aadhaar seeding platform.
The EPFO tried to play down the seriousness of the data hack by suggesting that the data busters hadn’t managed to break into its servers but had exploited certain vulnerabilities in a gateway which is managed by CSC E-Governance Services Ltd, the Aadhaar seeding platform.
The web portal that was hacked allowed EPFO field offices and CSC centres to seed Aadhaar with the Provident Fund’s universal account number (UAN) allocated to employees. Seeding is the process by which Aadhaar numbers are included in the service delivery database of service providers.
The EPFO said it had shut down the website on March 22 and asked CSC to secure the confidential data of employees and plug vulnerabilities.
On Wednesday night, the EPFO was allowing its members to access their accounts and download their passbooks.
CSC E-Governance Services is a special purpose vehicle set up by the electronics and information technology ministry.
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