An extortion saga at one of India’s biggest fintech companies threatens to throw open a Pandora’s box that could expose blind spots in the mechanisms in place to protect the financial data of millions of users.
Paytm’s vice president of corporate communications, Sonia Dhawan, her husband and another employee in the organization have been booked for allegedly blackmailing the company’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma by threatening to leak his financial details. Sonia Dhawan has been associated with the company for a decade, and previously served as Sharma’s secretary.
The lawyer’s representing the Dhawan’s allege that there was pressure on them to sell their stake in Paytm. The company says that only Sharma’s data was breached and that customers of the popular wallet have no reason to fear. The fact that company insiders were able to access the personal and financial details of the Paytm founder raises the question of whether the data harvested by private companies as a part of the e-KYC process stands compromised.
Paytm has over 300 million customers who use their wallet service and payments bank. Sakshi Batra discusses the potential impact of this breach on the safety of users’ data with Moneycontrol’s Priyanka Sahay.
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