By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Star Health, a major Indian insurer, has filed a lawsuit against messaging app Telegram and so-called hackers after a Reuters report said the hackers had used a chatbot on the app to leak personal information and medical reports of policyholders.
Star received an interim injunction from a court in its home state of Tamil Nadu directing Telegram to block any chatbots or websites “that publish data online” in India, the insurer said in a public notice published in The Hindu newspaper.
In its notice, Star described the incident as “unlawful hacking and unauthorized access to highly sensitive and classified information.”
Telegram did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Reuters reported last week that someone calling himself xenZen had publicly posted stolen data, including medical reports of Star’s clients, on Telegram, just weeks after Telegram’s founder was accused of using the app to commit crimes.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
