Jio data leak: Jio's COVID-19 Symptom Tracker's data leaked online: Reports

India is currently under lockdown to stop the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in the nation. Many apps, websites, portals and more emerged during this time of need to help the government and the users to track the expanse of the virus and to protect themselves by self-assessment. Reliance Jio launched the COVID-19 symptom checker for the same. But, now reports suggest that Jio's data has been leaked online.

Jio Symptom Checker data leaked due to security issues

The Jio Symptom Checker initiative was to help the government and its users to find out if they have any symptom related to the virus. Jio had rolled out this feature on its website and via its MyJio app. However, the reports of security lapse of Jio's COVID-19 symptom checker started doing the rounds when a leading news portal revealed the information a few days back. The news agency was approached by Anurag Sen, a security researcher who found the system glitch on May 1, 2020. 

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He revealed that the leaked data contained millions of logs and records starting from April 17, 2020. The reports say that the server contained a running log of system messages and more importantly user-generated self-test data. The data found by the researcher also included other data such as who took the test and more.

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The leaked data reportedly contained information including self-test data, their gender, and their age along with a small snippet of information about the user’s browser version and the operating system. The leaked database also displayed individual records of people who have signed up to create a profile in the COVID-19 symptom checker of My Jio App and all the answers to the questions asked by the symptom checker.

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According to the reports, some records also contained the precise location of the users, which probably belong to people who granted the symptom checker access to their browser or phone’s location data. Although, when Reliance Jio came in awareness of such a security lapse, it pulled the system offline. The Jio spokesperson also said that the organisation's logging server was for monitoring performance of the website which was intended for the limited purpose of people doing a self-check for Coronavirus symptoms. 

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