Aditya Birla Case Decode!! (₹1.95 crores of cyber hack)

Last week, a cyberattack hit Aditya Birla Capital’s app.

435 unsuspecting users.

₹1.95 crore worth of digital gold ??? GONE!

Not from a shady fintech.

From one of India’s most established financial groups.

What failed?

An API — the glue between the user interface and backend systems.

It wasn’t hardened. It wasn’t fully monitored. And that’s all it took.

This isn’t just Aditya Birla’s problem.

It's a wake-up call for every enterprise that’s adopted APIs faster than it’s secured them.

Most orgs run 500–1,000 APIs today.

But only a fraction of those are actually hardened or encrypted at transit.

Your Perspective:

"The security protection at the data centre and other applications needs to be strengthened. We call it hardening. The data in transit must be encrypted at least with 256-bit level. The challenge? Threats are getting sharper and so must our defaults."

Hardening isn’t just a checklist.

It’s a mindset shift.

And if you’re still securing systems based on roles from 2018, your APIs are wide open in 2025.

In my view, it’s high time for a full system audit—especially when it comes to those overlooked API endpoints. Too often, implementing teams spin up APIs with weak app keys, assuming they’ll circle back to “harden” them later. Spoiler alert: they rarely do. Those endpoints stay vulnerable—just waiting to be exploited.

We saw this play out painfully in the recent Aditya Birla Capital hack. A single unsecured API led to ₹1.95 crore in stolen digital gold—affecting over 435 users. And it wasn’t a fringe fintech—it was one of India’s biggest players.

In one project, a vendor platform revoked uncertified TLS versions mid-rollout. That single upgrade stopped a breach dead in its tracks—before it even had a chance.

Securing APIs isn’t about fear—it’s about posture. Because the only thing more expensive than implementing strong defenses? Regaining trust once it’s lost.

Let’s be proactive before we pay the price.

Here’s what most orgs miss:

• Not all integrations are created equal

• Dev teams push fast, security lags behind

• Legacy systems rarely talk safely with modern endpoints

• And worst — the “less critical” APIs are rarely audited

Until one gets exploited.

So, what can leaders do?

✅ Map every single API — and assign an owner

✅ Encrypt all data in transit by default (256-bit minimum)

✅ Apply zero trust not just to people, but to systems

✅ Treat integrations with the same rigor as core infra

This isn’t about fear. It’s about posture.

Because the only thing costlier than securing the system… is recovering trust after a breach.