There is a say on the insider threat is much dangerous then outsider threat. At last police able to nab the culprit, none other than his own long associate personal secretary Sonia Dhawan ditched her boss (Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma ) to extort Rs. 20 crore in lieu of stolen personal data, However, the company says, that all its consumer data is protected with the “highest and most impenetrable levels of security”. Sonia has arrested by UP Police in Noida for allegedly blackmailing her boss to money.
This is a case of personal data theft of Vijay Shekhar Sharma, there were three persons arrested so far and at this point, the law enforcement authorities are investigating this matter and we would like to respect the police investigation, and not comment further until the results of such investigation are known,” Paytm said in a statement.
Sonia was the mastermind of the extortion bid. Sonia has been working with Paytm from the last 10 years and had access to Sharma’s laptop, phone and office desktop. After working for such a long time, why there Sonia had done this kind of untrusted job, what could be the reason behind this? The answer to hear from the Noida police, after the interrogation will complete.
The mastermind happened in this way like Sonia’s husband Roopak Jain and another Paytm employee Devnedra Kumar were allegedly involved in the blackmailing. The fourth accused, Rohit Chomal, is a resident of Kolkata and had allegedly made the extortion call to Sharma’s brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma.
Vijay Sekhar Sharma,CEO- Paytm had made a complaint with the police that their employees, a woman and her aides, had stolen some data from the company and were blackmailing. They were demanding Rs. 20 crore for not leaking it, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ajay Pal Sharma said.
Taking immediate action on it, an FIR was registered and three persons, including the woman, arrested. They are being probed about the data and their modus operandi. Police will share the facts as they are unearthed, Sharma said.
The SSP said they will seek their custody to interrogate them further and gather more details. Police were not clear as to what kind of data was stolen. He said that the local police are in touch with their counterparts in Kolkata to track down Chomal, who allegedly made the extortion call to Sharma’s brother.
Charges under the provisions of the Information Technology Act have also been pressed against the accused, the police said. When contacted, Paytm confirmed in a statement that the Noida Police have arrested three people, including one female employee of Paytm, in the case of extortion. The employee along with two other accomplices attempted to extort money from Vijay Shekhar Sharma on the pretext of leaking his personal data. We are standing by our colleagues till the police enquiry reaches its meaningful conclusion, the company said.
