Some customers of Zivame, an Indian online women’s intimate clothing retailer owned by Reliance Retail, have complained that their accounts have been hacked, resulting in the disclosure of their personal details, including their full names, phone numbers and email addresses.
In recent weeks, alleged Zivame data has been sold by hackers on multiple forums. Three clients told TechCrunch that their information matches the data sample shared by a broker. The information included their phone numbers, email addresses, and shipping addresses.
One of the data samples the broker shared also included details about individual purchases, but did not contain any payment-related information.
The broker told TechCrunch that they were selling the data on behalf of a primary hacker. The data was later taken offline, apparently at the request of the hacker.
TechCrunch informed Indian computer emergency response team CERT-In on Friday about the availability of data samples. “We are already taking appropriate action with the relevant authority,” CERT-In said in response.
Zivame declined to comment on the apparent breach when TechCrunch reached out to him. When I was reached through LinkedIn, Zivame chief technology and product officer Monish Kaul opened and read our message, but did not respond.
Nandakishore Harikumar, founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup Technisanct, who reported first the availability of the exposed data on May 11 reviewed some of the data samples. Harikumar said his company found that through manual verification of 50 randomly selected email addresses and phone numbers from the dump, the data belonged to Zivame customers.
“The true scope of the threat and the full range of details leaked have yet to be determined,” Harikumar told TechCrunch.
Founded in 2011, Zivame offers a range of women’s innerwear. The Bengaluru-based startup raised a total of $69.2 million in funding, per publicly available data. Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Indian oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries and the largest retailer in the South Asian country by revenue, acquired Zivame in 2020.
