New Delhi, June 7 (IANS): Popular content streaming service ZEE5 on Sunday refuted reports that claimed its user data has been compromised by a hacker, saying it is investigating the matter.

A hacker identifying himself as John Wick has claimed to have accessed the network of popular streaming service ZEE5, allegedly stealing over 150GB of user data along with the source code of the website, according to a report in cybersecurity news portal Quickcyber.

In a statement shared with IANS, Tushar Vohra, Head Technology, ZEE5 India said that they have noted some reports claiming about the data breach at ZEE5's end.

"We are investigating it further. We are also cognizant of the fact that the OTT sector has exploded in the past few years, so has hackers' interest in it. Especially post COVID-19 outbreak, data hacks have been on a steady rise. It is a shallow attempt to gain vested interests," Vohra explained.

According to the report, the hacker who appeared to be from a Korean hacking group is now planning to dump the data in the public domain for open sale.

Vohra said that all the sensitive information that can cause harm is solely rested with the top payment gateways that ZEE5 integrates and is fully secured.

"ZEE5's backend is built with state of the art technology which is robust and strong, and we will continue to invest aggressively in technology, partnering with some of the leaders in security measures including Akamai, AWS (Amazon Web Services) to safeguard users' data and to ensure it is never compromised," he added.

ZEE5 has over 150 million subscribers worldwide.