Over 5.4 million email IDs have exposed in a data breach at Aditya Birla Fashion

A data breach has occurred on Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd's (ABFRL) portal, and the business is investigating the situation. In the meantime, the company has stated that it will have no operational or business impact.

The company has hired forensic security specialists to look into the data breach, which resulted in the publication of over 5.4 million email addresses from the Aditya Birla Group-owned company's homepage online.

"ABFRL is investigating an information security incident that entailed unauthorised access to its e-commerce database," said an ABFRL spokesperson while confirming the incident.

However, he also added that there has been no operational or business impact. "As a pro-active measure, the company has reset passwords of all customers and enabled OTP based authentication and taken further steps to secure access to customer and employee information," he said.

ABFRL's database, according to sources, has been made public by a hacker organisation known as ShinyHunters.

Rajshekhar Rajaharia, a cyber security expert, has also offered information on this.

"#ShinyHunters allegedly made public 700 GB of data of #AdityaBirlaFashion including 5.4Mn emails, phone. It seems New Year Data Breaches season started in India. Time to change work email's password," he tweeted.

According to the claims, the database contains sensitive customer data such as names, phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth, order histories, credit card information, and passwords saved as Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5) hashes.

Employee information was also exposed, including pay information, religion, and marital status.

ABFRL is the country's largest pure-play fashion powerhouse, with an elegant bouquet of premier fashion brands and retail formats, and recorded revenue of Rs 5,181.14 crore in FY21.

The company has a network of 3,264 stores and about 26,841 multi-brand outlets as of September 30, 2021.

Its portfolio includes top names including Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, and Peter England, as well as Pantaloons, India's largest value fashion retailer.

The Collective, India's largest multi-brand retailer of foreign brands, Simon Carter, and select mono-brands such as Forever 21, American Eagle, Ralph Lauren, Hackett London, Ted Baker, and Fred Perry are among the company's international brand portfolio.

It had announced last week that it will purchase a 51 percent majority stake in popular and modern brand 'Masaba,' promoted by famous designer Masaba Gupta, for Rs 90 crore in cash.

ABFL has also entered the branded ethnic wear market with the acquisition of the Jaypore brand and collaborations with India's top designers Shantanu and Nikhil, Tarun Tahiliani, and Sabyasachi.