Railways shuts 3 crore suspicious accounts

The Ministry of Railways has implemented multiple anti-fraud measures to prevent unauthorised access to its e-ticketing platform, resulting in the deactivation of approximately 3.03 crore suspicious user IDs in 2025, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

In a written reply to a question by Congress member Pramod Tiwari, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that 60.43 billion malicious bot requests had been blocked over the past six months, helping protect the integrity of the e-ticketing system.

To prevent misuse and ensure fairness in Tatkal bookings, Aadhaar-based One-Time Password (OTP) verification has been introduced for online ticketing. The authentication process enables instant verification of users and is particularly important given the time-sensitive nature of Tatkal bookings. By enforcing user uniqueness, it prevents the creation and use of fake or agent-controlled multiple accounts, serving as an effective safeguard against automated misuse.

The minister said that the measure had improved ticket availability for genuine passengers and enhanced transparency in the online Tatkal booking system.

He also informed the House that multiple application-level security measures had been implemented, including CAPTCHA verification at various stages to prevent scripting, brute-force attempts and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Additional security controls have also been introduced to address Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) vulnerabilities and strengthen overall application security.