A newly created portal offers “verified database 80 Crore Truecaller” for open purchase. While the portal claims that popular caller identification app Truecaller has verified the data, the latter has denied any infringement of its data. “We can confirm that our database has not been breached and all of our user information is secure,” a spokesperson for Truecaller told India Today.
The website claims that “the data will be made available in CSV format so that you can easily incorporate it into your CRM [customer relationship management] or other marketing tool you can use.” Although a significant portion of the sample collection tends to consist of corporate organisations, individual data has also been identified.
Speaking to India Today, independent cyber security researcher Athul Jayaram said, “They continue to use Truecaller to check the 80 crore phone numbers even if this data is leaked from Truecaller or not. There will be several malfunctions in Truecaller ‘s protection if a malicious actor used its service to either leak or identify users, including grabbing their names , addresses and other available personal data.
