Up -and-coming cybersecurity company Cyble , which offers real -time Dark Web monitoring services , appears to be facing its first crisis. It is accused of extorting victims of data breaches, in a similar way to ransomware groups . According to a report by KEN , if a company that has been the victim of a data breach does not pay Cyble after reporting the incident, the security firm shares its findings on a public blog that anyone can see.
KEN said the latest data breach to be dealt with in this way was that of Big Basket in India, from which Cyble allegedly demanded $80,000 to keep the data it discovered public. KEN also claims that Cyble gave the grocery shopping platform a 72-hour grace period. As the report’s authors state, this informal blackmail process also hit RedDoorz , which suffered a data breach in September, with Cyble demanding $140,000.
In both cases, Cyble refused to share the details it discovered with the companies for free and tried to force them to sign up for services . These two companies refused, but two others, Dunzo and JusPay, accepted the offer. So KEN reportedly spoke to representatives from all of these companies, and they all confirmed this practice.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Indian Privacy Bill has summoned Cyble, PayPal, iSPIRT, Visa and Mastercard to discuss the recent security incidents and formulate a strong legal approach to prevent them in the future. Some have found this move suspicious, believing that Cyble was being asked to explain itself regarding KEN's allegations.
Beenu Arora, founder and CEO of Cyble, clarified moments after leaving the hearing that Cyble was invited to provide feedback on the bill. In fact, he said that the Indian government had invited them long before the KEN story came out, so it has nothing to do with it. Commenting on the meeting itself, the Cyble CEO said: “It was a great experience. India is moving in the right direction with this bill.”
Beenu Arora categorically denies everything about KEN's allegations, saying that Cyble always shares all the information it gathers with victims. This includes how they were breached, helping to protect their systems without asking for anything in return.
