Aarogya Setu team contacts hacker claiming security risk in India's flagship Covid app

Centre on Wednesday has issued a statement regarding data security of Aarogya Setu App after a French hacker Robert Baptiste, who goes by Elliot Alderson on Twitter, claimed that re are security issues with government’s flagship Covid contact tracing platform. In its statement, Aarogya Setu Team assured citizens that security or data breach has been identified, and thanked 'Ethical hacker'.

' data or security breach has been identified'

" personal information of any user has been proven to be at risk by this ethical hacker. We are continuously testing and upgrading our systems. Team Aarogya Setu assures everyone that data or security breach has been identified," statement reads, adding technical details.

It added, "We thank this ethical hacker on engaging with us. We identify any users who identify a vulnerability to inform us immediately at support.aarogyasetu@gov.in. Your continuous support will help us keep App even more secure."

statement also included a detailed clarification on points of 'app fetching user locations on a few occasions' and 'User can get COVID-19 stats displayed on Home Screen by changing radius and latitude-longitude using a script'. hacker raised his concerns on se points during conversation with Aarogya Setu Team. 

'Sophisticated surveillance system'

hacker on Tuesday claimed that a security issue has been found in app and added that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi 'was right' about app. A few days ago, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that Aarogya Setu mobile application, designed to help users to identify wher y are at risk of COVID-19 infection and provides people with important information, including ways to avoid coronavirus and its symptoms, is a "sophisticated surveillance system". hacker went on to claim that lapse may have been by design.

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Techlogy can help keep people safe, but fear must t be used to track citizens without ir consent, Congress chief had said.

Aarogya Setu was launched by Indian government on April 2 as official app to help with contact tracing efforts. app has been promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and or BJP leaders and has been downloaded over 9 crore times already.  Centre has recently made app mandatory for individuals in containment zones for COVID-19, and for all government officials.

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