New York: Major Indian missile and
armament systems may have been compromised as Chinese hackers
have reportedly broken into top secret files of the Indian
Defence Ministry and embassies around the world.
Among the systems leaked out could be Shakti, the just
introduced advanced artillery combat and control system of the
Indian Army and the country's new mobile missile defence
system called the Iron Dome.
A new report called 'Shadow in the Clouds' by Canadian
and American researchers based at the University of Toronto
has said that a spy operation called 'Shadow Network' based
out of China has tapped into top secret files of the Indian
government.
In the investigations conducted over eight months, the
report claimed that systematic cyber espionage was carried out
from servers located in China that "compromised" government,
business, academic and other computer network systems in
India.
The report finds that Indian government related
entities, both in India and throughout the world, had been
thoroughly compromised.
These included computers at Indian embassies in
Belgium, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, the United States,
Zimbabwe, and the High Commissions of India in Cyprus and the
United Kingdom.
"These include documents from the Offices of the Dalai
Lama and agencies of the Indian national security
establishment," the report said.
"Data containing sensitive information on citizens of
numerous third-party countries, as well as personal,
financial, and business information, were also exfiltrated and
recovered during the course of the investigation," it said.
"Recovery and analysis of exfiltrated data, including
one document that appears to be encrypted diplomatic
correspondence, two documents marked "SECRET", six as
"RESTRICTED", and five as "CONFIDENTIAL". These documents are
identified as belonging to the Indian government," it added.
These documents contain sensitive information taken
from a member of the National Security Council Secretariat
concerning secret assessments of India's security situation in
the states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, as well as
concerning the Naxalites and Maoists.
In addition, they contain confidential information
taken from Indian embassies regarding India's international
relations with and assessments of activities in West Africa,
Russia/Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East,
as well as visa applications, passport office circulars and
diplomatic correspondence.
However, the researchers note that there is no direct
evidence that these were stolen from Indian government
computers and they may have been compromised as a result of
being copied onto personal computers.
Recovered documents also included presentations
relating to the following projects: Pechora Missile System - an
anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile system, Iron Dome Missile
System - a mobile missile defence system (Ratzlav-Katz 2010)
and Project Shakti - an artillery combat command and control
system (Frontier India 2009).
The report also finds that the spies also hacked into
information on visa applications submitted to Indian
diplomatic missions in Afghanistan.
This data was voluntarily provided to the Indian
missions by nationals of 13 countries as part of the regular
visa application process.
"In a context like Afghanistan, this finding points to
the complex nature of the information security challenge where
risks to individuals (or operational security) can occur as a
result of a data compromise on secure systems operated by
trusted partners," the report said.
The investigation also said that 1,500 letters sent
from the Dalai Lama’s office between January and November
2009, were also leaked out.
The researchers noted that while there was no clear
insight into the motives of the spies, "the theme appears to
involve topics that would likely be of interest to the Indian
and Tibetan communities".
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 06, 2010, 17:41