Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Ltd (HPSEBL) Data Breach (2019)

In a serious breach of security, personal details including telephone number, bank account details and Aadhaar number of more than 20 lakh customers of Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Ltd (HPSEBL) have been leaked online. It includes data of both commercial clients and home users. This data breach will make it easy for hackers to access personal information of almost all those in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The personal information of almost anyone who has paid electricity bills to Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board can be got from this set of documents. It has a person’s name, email id, HPSEBL customer id, Aadhaar number, bank account details, IFSC code and phone number. Since Aadhaar number has been linked to almost every account, even if a person chooses to pay offline, their details can be obtained. The presence of the Aadhaar details along with the phone number has made it easy to extract all the other information.