State Bank of India says it has contacted customers whose personal details leaked online. Funds are safe, but the data could make scam calls sound real.
State Bank of India (SBI) says it has messaged every customer whose personal details turned up in a data leak. The notices went out by email, WhatsApp or both. The bank says account balances and funds are safe. The risk now is different: criminals holding real details can make fake calls and messages sound believable.
SBI first disclosed a suspected leak of about 3.75 lakh records (roughly 375,000) found on the dark web, a hidden part of the internet where stolen data is often traded. Its early investigation confirmed 3,897 of those records as customer records containing personal information. The bank received alerts on October 16 from CERT-In, the Defence Cyber Agency and its threat intelligence provider. It filed a regulatory disclosure on October 21.
None of this lets someone drain an account on its own. But a caller who knows your name, birth date, address and loan details sounds like a real bank employee. That is how many phone and message scams work. SBI itself points to this concern. It also says the incident has not materially affected its banking operations or financial performance.
If SBI has not contacted you, the bank says it has already informed all customers whose data it identified. Still, the investigation is preliminary. The material does not say whether the number of affected records will change. If you did get a notice, treat it as a warning, and be careful about who contacts you next. Even a genuine notice should be checked, because scammers may copy it.
The alert box above lists the steps. The main idea is simple: do not trust a message or call about your account until you have confirmed it through SBI's official channels.
SBI has hired an independent cybersecurity agency to find the source and full extent of the incident. That work is still going. It is not yet known how the data got out or whether more records are involved.
Never act on a call or message about your SBI account until you confirm it through the bank's official app, website or a branch.
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