policy bazaar ensures data safety for its consumers

policy bazaar ensures data safety for its consumers

Data security is quite a sensitive topic in the contemporary scenario where everything is under the process of reformation by technology. We as consumers are constantly worried about our confidential data being in the hands of critical security vulnerabilities. One such incident of recent times happened with the Indian insurance aggregator Policy bazaar. Policy bazaar was accused of sharing the data of its Indian customers which came as a sudden shock for us. This article is dedicated to analyzing how Policy bazaar ensured data safety for its consumers after the incident.

 

Policy Bazaar Accused of Violating Data Safety

Policy bazaar is an Indian fintech company that dominates the insurance sector of our country. The company receives an impertinent chunk of investment and funding from a Chinese company named Tencent Holdings. They are in the field of insurance brokerage and naturally store heaps of data about their policyholders. Due to some serious circumstances, they were accused of exposing all personal and delicate personal information of their 56.4 million customers. The sensitive information about health, financial holdings, insurance, birth details, mobile numbers, Aadhaar, and passport details amongst others was leaked. This incident took place on 19th July 2022.

The apocalypse caused by this data leak became a major threat to India’s national security because its customer base also included important defense personnel. This leak was a result of no restrictions, improper authorization, and precautionary measures by the company’s systems. What made this issue even abhorrent was that they were charged with doing this on purpose with an intention of this foul play and giving a chance for the Chinese aggregators to have access to the data.

 Policy bazaar has also announced its collaboration with Accrivis Network which is a data integration platform. With this, the PB people are planning to implement blockchain technology to address the queries of their customers on firmer grounds of authenticity. This step will make the procedure of purchasing insurance from Policy bazaar seamless and secure. Blockchain will help them in detecting future frauds and resolve the issues of non-uniformity of data.

 

How did Policy Bazaar Ensure Data Security for its Consumers?

After this whole incident of a data breach, Policy bazaar took immediate action and stated the same. The officials of the company ensured that they have taken the necessary actions to prioritize the security of their customers and told people to have faith in their integrity. The concerned authorities noticed the illegitimate attempt to access the data IT network of Policy bazaar. They said that this IT hack was tracked as soon as it was initiated. The investigation began and is still in process. However, they have reassured their customers that no significant data has been leaked and their systems are under the process of ingrained checking. Additionally, they will release the following updates adhering to the laws. They assisted that all the vulnerabilities were successfully fixed at the earliest. But a negative impact of this came when the shares of the Policy bazaar fintech fell by 3% on the boards of the National Stock Exchange.

 

Why are Fintech Companies the Legit Target of Cybercriminals?

Incidents like these are not new. The reason is quite transparent to detect. Today everyone is moving progressively toward digital banking. Because digital banking is free from all hassles, new technologies are being helmed to access and manage the online transactional data of the customers. The pivotal reason behind the frequent data frauds happening in the fintech industry is that cybercriminals are becoming proficient in developing hacking software that gives them unauthorized access to steal financial data. Technology has brought these criminals opportunities to exploit people’s confidential information. They make money by selling these chunks of data to either competitors or illegal organizations for a huge lump of money.