Aarogya Setu App: French hacker Elliot Alderson flags security issue, developers deny claim

French hacker who goes by the name Elliot Alderson on Twitter, stated that the Aarogya Setu app has a security snag that has put the privacy of many Indians at risk.

Alderson put out a tweet on Tuesday to alert the government and his followers about the alleged security snag in the contact tracing app. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and National Informatics Centre without delay contacted him to make out the glitch. However, the developers of the app dismissed the claim.

Without being specific about the defect, the hacker tweeted on Tuesday to point out the issue with the Aarogya Setu aap. “The privacy of 90 million Indians is at stake. Can you contact me in private?” he tweeted.

Alderson also included an additional remark in his tweet that stated Rahul Gandhi was correct. The Congress leader had earlier claimed that the app is a “sophisticated surveillance system” that raises “serious data security and privacy concerns”.

In no more than 45 minutes after his first tweet, Alderson stated that he was approached by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and National Informatics Centre(NIC). “The issue has been disclosed to them,” he said.

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However, the team behind the Aarogya Setu app agreed to the communication with the hacker through a tweet on Wednesday. But, it did not give any particulars about the alleged security snag and all the more gainsaid the claim made by the hacker.

“No 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 no data or security breach has been identified,” the team wrote.

Alderson made a response to the note put out by the Aarogya Setu team stating, “I will come back to you tomorrow.” he also asked the team about triangulation suggesting a snag inside the system that cumulates users data through the app.

Despite the fact that there is no evidence corroborating what the hacker has said on Twitter, other experts have raised security concerns in the Aarogya Setu app as well. Alderson also has a good record of discovering serious security flaws. He gained popularity in India by divulging security glitch in the Aadhaar system.

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