NEW DELHI: The semi-government agency behind India’s national identity card project on Saturday denied a report by news website ZDNet that the program has been hit by another security lapse that allows access to private information.
ZDNet reported that a data leak on a system run by a state-owned utility company, which it did not name, could allow access to private information of holders of the biometric “Aadhaar” ID cards, exposing their names, their unique 12-digit identity numbers, and their bank details.
But the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs the Aadhaar program, said “there is no truth in this story” and that they were “contemplating legal action against ZDNet.”
“There has been absolutely no breach of UIDAI’s Aadhaar database. Aadhaar remains safe and secure,” the agency said in a statement late on Saturday.
“Even if the claim purported in the story were taken as true, it would raise security concerns on database of that utility company and has nothing to do with the security of UIDAI’s Aadhaar database,” it said.
Earlier, experts warned on Saturday that India risks a national security disaster unless the country’s identity database is made more secure.
The security analysts were commenting in the wake of a claim made by ZDNet that there was a new leak in the Aadhaar database, which stores the identity and biometric details of more than a billion citizens.
In a report late on Friday night, technology news website ZDNet claimed there was a data leak on a system run by a state-owned utility company.
ZDNet did not name the utility, but in a detailed explanation of the flaw said the leak allowed anyone to download private information on all Aadhaar holders. That includes names, unique 12-digit identity numbers, and information about services, such as the bank accounts and utilities.
All companies require Aadhaar to first match the account holder with the names in the Aadhaar database through an API to verify identity.
According to the ZDNet report, the utility failed to secure the API. Based on this, the report claimed that it was possible to retrieve private data on each Aadhaar holder, regardless of whether they are a customer of the utility provider or not, it said.
“There is a flaw in the system and the first step has been breached,” said Tarun Wig, co-founder Innefu Labs, a security services company in Delhi.
Any agency that deals with Aadhaar, including service providers such as mobile phone companies, has an API so it can match the customer’s identity with the database, Wig said.
“There is no way you can protect that first step since there’s no way to stop companies from storing the information,” he said. “What you can protect is the information associated with the number that you’re giving to external agencies.”
Banks should only know the Aadhaar number of their registered accounts and, similarly, mobile phone companies should know only the Aadhaar number of their users and not have access to their biometrics, Wig said.
He said another way to secure the system is to not let any companies hit the Aadhaar database directly — as is the case now. The browser-based API should be moved to the client’s server, he advised.
“The government has come too far to go back on Aadhaar,” said Wig. “And its benefits outweigh the cons, so now the focus should be to remove the vulnerabilities and make it more secure.”
In January, India’s Tribune newspaper reported that for 500 rupees it had bought unrestricted access to the entire Aadhaar database from anonymous sellers on the messaging app Whatsapp.
For an extra 300 rupees, it could get a software to print Aadhaar cards.
The government has maintained that the Aadhaar database is completely secure.
Aadhaar, or the unique identity number, was introduced by India’s previous UPA-led government. Initially, the idea was that all accounts that receive government subsidies should be linked with their unique identity number, a step toward plugging leaks in the system and ensuring that the subsidies went to the correct beneficiaries.
However, the current Narendra Modi-led government decided to extend that idea to all sectors — as a result, every service provider from mobile phones to bank accounts and e-wallets required consumers to link their respective accounts to Aadhaar.
That exercise is on hold while India’s top court decides on its legality.
Indian agency denies reported security lapse in ID card project
Indian agency denies reported security lapse in ID card project
Trump threatens funding cut to colleges allowing ‘illegal protests’
- The US government does not control either privately or publicly funded schools or colleges, although a president has a limited ability to encourage policy goals via federal funding disbursed through the US Department of Education
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he wanted to cut the federal funding of colleges that allow what he called “illegal protests” in a social media post that civil rights groups called an attack on the freedoms of speech and assembly.
The post on Tuesday appeared to repeat some of the ideas of executive orders he issued during his first term, in 2019, and on January 29, which described the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that swept college campuses last year as antisemitic.
“All federal funding will STOP for any College, School or University that allows illegal protests,” Trump wrote on social media. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!“
A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to questions about how the White House would define an illegal protest or how the government would imprison protesters. The US Constitution’s First Amendment protects the freedom of speech and assembly.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-profit group, said on Tuesday that Trump’s threat was “deeply chilling” and would make students “fear punishment for wholly protected political speech.”
“The president can’t force institutions to expel students,” the statement said.
The US government does not control either privately or publicly funded schools or colleges, although a president has a limited ability to encourage policy goals via federal funding disbursed through the US Department of Education.
Trump’s executive order in January restored a similar order he signed in 2019, instructing the Department of Education to investigate colleges that receive federal funding if they failed to protect Jewish students and staff from antisemitism.
Trump has also told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he wants non-citizen protesters admitted to the US on student visas to be deported.
Protesters set up tent encampments on college campuses across the US and around the world last year as conflict raged in Gaza. Many of the protests centered on their school’s investments in companies that they said supported Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territories.
Both some of those protests and some pro-Israel counter-protests involved incidents and allegations of antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias. Protest leaders, which include some Jewish students and faculty, say they are opposed to Israel, but reject allegations that their movement is antisemitic.
UN appeals for funds to help contain Uganda Ebola outbreak
KAMPALA: The UN has launched an emergency appeal to raise $11.2 million to help fund Uganda’s response to an Ebola outbreak that has killed two people, after the country’s health budget was strained by US cuts to foreign aid.
Uganda declared the outbreak of the highly infectious and often fatal hemorrhagic disease in January in the capital Kampala after the death of a male nurse at the East African country’s sole national referral hospital.
A second Ebola patient, a four-year-old child, died last week, the World Health Organization said, citing the country’s Health Ministry.
Uganda’s 10 confirmed cases have been linked to Ebola’s Sudan strain which does not have an approved vaccine.
In a statement sent out on Tuesday, the UN said the funds would cover the Ebola response from March to May in seven high-risk districts.
“The goal is to rapidly contain the outbreak and address its impact on public health as well as associated social-economic life of affected people,” said Kasonde Mwinga, Uganda representative for the World Health Organization, a UN agency.
Uganda has traditionally relied heavily on the US for its health sector funding.
During the last Ebola outbreak in 2022-2023, the United States provided $34 million to fund case management, surveillance, diagnostics, laboratories, infection prevention and control among other activities, according to a US Embassy report.
But President Donald Trump’s administration imposed an aid freeze and US funding to Uganda’s health sector has been slashed, hitting the country’s public health budget, according to government officials.
‘Stranded’ NASA astronaut backs Musk in rescue row
- Elon Musk recently clashed online with Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who accused him of lying in a Fox News interview
- Musk’s response to Mogensen included a slur for people with intellectual disabilities, sparking backlash from the space community
WASHINGTON: NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, stranded on the International Space Station since June, said Tuesday he believes Elon Musk’s claim that the billionaire proposed an early rescue plan, but it was ultimately rejected by then-President Joe Biden.
Wilmore and fellow astronaut Suni Williams were originally scheduled for an eight-day mission, but their return was complicated when the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing was deemed unsafe for the journey home.
Their prolonged stay has recently become a point of contention, with Musk and President Donald Trump accusing Biden’s administration of abandoning the pair to avoid making Musk look like a savior.
“I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says is absolutely factual,” said Wilmore, a former Navy test pilot. He admitted he wasn’t privy to the ins and outs of the drama, but added, “I believe him. I don’t know all those details.”
Musk recently clashed online with Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who accused him of lying in a Fox News interview when he claimed the astronauts were abandoned for “political reasons.”
Mogensen pointed out that, since the Boeing Starliner was deemed unsafe for return with people aboard, NASA had planned for months to bring Wilmore and Williams back on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which arrived at the ISS in September with two spare seats.
No alternative plan has been publicly discussed, and Crew-9’s return has been delayed by SpaceX itself due to setbacks in preparing the Dragon spacecraft for Crew-10, now scheduled for launch on March 12.
Interrupting the standard crew rotation would also be a deviation from protocol, and extended astronaut stays are not unprecedented.
In 2023, Frank Rubio became the first NASA astronaut to spend over a year in space after a meteoroid damaged the Russian Soyuz spacecraft he rode up on.
Similarly, after the Columbia disaster in 2003, when a shuttle disintegrated during re-entry, NASA suspended flights for two years, forcing astronauts to rely on Soyuz and extend their missions.
Musk’s response to Mogensen included a slur for people with intellectual disabilities, sparking backlash from the space community. Former NASA astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly defended Mogensen and criticized the SpaceX founder.
“Obviously, we’ve heard some of these different things that have been said,” Wilmore commented. “We have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them... and we’re thankful that they are in the positions they’re in.”
Wilmore’s remarks come just days after acting NASA administrator Janet Petro raised eyebrows by stating the agency aimed to put “America first,” echoing Trump’s political slogan.
“We’re going to be putting America first, we’re making America proud, we’re doing this for the US citizens,” she said before a private Moon lander touched down on Sunday — a notable shift from NASA’s longstanding stance that its space achievements were “for all mankind.”
Suspect in deadly German car-ramming gives no information on motive and is ordered held in custody
- The suspect gave no information in his appearance before a judge, “so that his motive for the act is still unclear”
- A search of his apartment in nearby Ludwigshafen also turned up no clues as to a motive
MANNHEIM, Germany: The suspect in a car-ramming in the German city of Mannheim that killed two people gave no information about his motive Tuesday as he appeared before a judge who ordered him held pending a possible indictment, investigators said.
The 40-year-old German man was arrested shortly after the car-ramming Monday at around noon on a busy pedestrian street in downtown Mannheim in southwestern Germany. Eleven people were injured, five of them seriously, and the latter were still being treated in hospitals on Tuesday.
Mourners laid flowers in the city center to honor the victims.
Mannheim prosecutors and state police said a district court in the city ordered the man kept in custody pending possible formal charges on suspicion of two counts of murder, five of attempted murder and 11 of bodily harm.
The investigators said in a statement that the suspect gave no information in his appearance before a judge, “so that his motive for the act is still unclear.” A search of his apartment in nearby Ludwigshafen also turned up no clues as to a motive.
The investigation so far points to mental illness, the statement added. The suspect is believed to have acted alone. Prosecutors and police said that objects the man had in his car and his home — including a blank gun and written documents — were being evaluated.
The suspect tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the mouth before he was arrested, Tuesday’s statement said. He was initially taken to a hospital but subsequently handed over to police.
Officials said on Monday that they had no indication of an extremist or religious motivation.
Prosecutors have said the man, whose identity was not revealed in line with German privacy rules, has previous convictions.
He served a short prison sentence for assault more than 10 years ago and was convicted for drunken driving. He had also been investigated for a hate speech offense on Facebook in 2018, for which he was fined, prosecutors said without giving further details.
Cars have been used as deadly weapons in other acts of violence in recent months in Germany.
Last month, a 2-year-old girl and her mother died two days after they were injured in a car-ramming attack on a union demonstration in Munich. A 24-year-old Afghan man who came to Germany as an asylum-seeker was arrested. Prosecutors said he appeared to have an Islamic extremist motive.
In December, six people were killed and more than 200 injured when a car slammed into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The suspect is a 50-year-old doctor who had expressed anti-Muslim views and support for the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative For Germany party.
Smoke grenades tossed in Serbian parliament, lawmaker suffers stroke
- A live TV broadcast showed black and pink smoke billowing inside the parliament
- Vucic later said authorities would hold all those deputies involved in the fracas to account, calling it “hooliganism“
BELGRADE: Serbian opposition lawmakers threw smoke grenades and used pepper spray inside parliament on Tuesday to protest against the government and to support demonstrating students, with one legislator suffering a stroke during the chaos.
Four months of student-led demonstrations, sparked by the deaths of 15 people when a railway station roof collapsed, have drawn in teachers, farmers and others to become the biggest threat yet to President Aleksandar Vucic’s decade-long rule, with many denouncing rampant corruption and incompetence in government.
At the legislative session, after the ruling coalition led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) approved the agenda, some opposition politicians ran from their seats toward the parliamentary speaker and scuffled with security guards.
Others tossed smoke grenades and used pepper spray. A live TV broadcast showed black and pink smoke billowing inside the parliament, which has seen brawls before, in the decades since the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1990.
Vucic later said authorities would hold all those deputies involved in the fracas to account, calling it “hooliganism.”
Under Serbian law, parliamentary deputies enjoy immunity from prosecution but can lose it if they commit serious crimes.
POLITICIAN HURT
Speaker Ana Brnabic said three lawmakers were injured and one, Jasmina Obradovic of the SNS party, had suffered a stroke and was hospitalized.
Zlatibor Loncar, the Health Minister later said Obradovic was in a serious condition.
As the session continued, ruling coalition politicians debated while opposition lawmakers whistled and blew horns.
Opposition deputies also held signs reading “general strike” and “justice for those killed,” referring to those who died when the station roof collapsed in the city of Novi Sad last November.
Outside parliament hundreds of protesters stood in silence to honor those killed. Protest leaders called for a major rally in the capital Belgrade on March 15.
The ruling coalition says Western intelligence agencies are trying to destabilize Serbia and topple the government by backing the protests.
“We have a proposal ... to have a transitional government,” Radomir Lazovic of the opposition Green-Left Front told supporters in front of the parliament.
The opposition says a transitional government should secure conditions for free and fair elections, but Vucic and his allies have so far rejected that demand.
“This was a failed attempt of the ruling coalition to show it is in control ..., and (there’s) a potential for an escalation,” Radivoje Grujic, a Warsaw-based consultant told Reuters, commenting on the parliamentary session.
Parliament was due to adopt a law increasing funds for universities — one of the main demands of protesting students.
But other items put on the agenda by the ruling coalition including the one about noting the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic angered the opposition.
The session has been adjourned and is due to resume on Wednesday.
