Cloud telephony service Exotel confirms major cyber attack on cloud servers

Exotel, a cloud-based telecommunication service provider based in India, said it experienced a data security incident that compromised the sensitive data of its customers.

Exotel, one of Asia’s largest cloud telephony platforms, counts businesses like online ride-hailing services Ola and Uber, food delivery apps Zomato and Swiggy, online shopping app Flipkart, several banks and software developer Zoho among its clients. The company also operates in the UAE, Indonesia, Africa, and the U.S.

News about Exotel suffering a cyber incident came to light when technology news portal Entrackr quoted sources to report that the customer conversation platform suffered a significant data breach following a cyber attack.

“A massive data breach was reported on Friday which happened last week. Exotel works with many large companies, including financial institutions and their data have been breached,” a source told Entrackr.

The source added that the company’s chief executive Shivakumar Ganesan also convened an emergency meeting on Friday.

Acknowledging the reports of the data security incident, an Exotel spokesperson said, “We recently identified unauthorised access to one of our cloud Infrastructure stamps in Singapore and acted swiftly to contain the issue. Importantly, no sensitive personal or financial information was compromised.”

“The breach was limited and majority customers were not affected. We have already notified those impacted, providing them with detailed information and recommended steps to mitigate any potential risks,” the spokesperson added.

Commenting on the data security incident, a Zomato spokesperson told Entrackr, “We have been made aware of the data breach at Exotel. So far, from what we know, our merchant and customer data is fully secure and no payment related sensitive information has been compromised. Our teams are actively working with Exotel to ascertain more details on the ongoing investigation.”

Exotel is yet to share details on who is behind the cyber security incident, the nature of the compromised data and how the threat actors infiltrated its internal network.