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Chinese hackers breach DRDO security, steal thousands of secret files

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13 Mar 2013 10:59:10 AM IST

The official website of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) once again came under the cyber attack unleashed by the Chinese hackers.
According to the Mumbai newspaper DNA, Chinese hackers breached the security of DRDO website and accessed thousands of top secret files.

As par the report, the top secret files related to Cabinet Committee on Security have been uploaded on a server based in Guangdong.

The report claims that this is the biggest security breach in the Indian defence establishment.

The hacking incident came to the fore in the first week of this month when officials from India’s technical intelligence wing, National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), along with private Indian cyber security experts cracked open a file called “army cyber policy”.

The DNA report claimed that the file was found attacked to hacked email accounts of senior DRDO officials that quickly spread through the system in a matter of seconds.

Later, the NTRO found that all the sensitive files stolen from the infected systems were being uploaded on a server in Guangdong province of China.

For the first time, Indian cyber intelligence team has successfully tracked the hacking location.

Indian cyber security experts discovered thousands of top secret CCS files, and other documents related to surface-to-air missile and radar programmes from DRDL, a DRDO lab based in Hyderabad, among many other establishments.

Even the e-tickets of DRDO scientists who had travelled to Delhi in February were found on the server.

Intelligence officials also discovered documents of deals struck between DRDO and Bharat Dyamics Ltd, a defence PSU which makes strategic missiles and components.

Other recovered files related to price negotiations with MBDA, a French missile manufacturing company.

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Scientist, journalist among 11 arrested for suspected terror plot

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Published: Friday, Aug 31, 2012, 8:52 IST
By DNA Correspondent | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA

The Central Crime Branch police have busted a terror plot and arrested 11 members with alleged links with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji). The arrested include a scientist from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and a journalist of a leading English daily – both from Bangalore – who along with the others arrested were preparing to eliminate political leaders and journalists at the behest of their handlers from Saudi Arabia.

Of the 11 arrested, six are Bangalore and five from Hubli, operating from two separate modules – the Hubli one to target politicians and the Bangalore one to target journalists.
City police commissioner BG Jyotiprakash Mirji said the two terror modules were busted after monitoring their movements over the past three months.

Preliminary investigations revealed that these were terror modules with international links and the police now suspect that several such modules may be existing in Karnataka and other parts of the country. This is now being investigated and the police expect several leads to emerge on interrogating the 11.

Mirji said in separate operations a team of police on Wednesday picked up Shoib Ahmed Mirza alias Chotu, a charted accountant aged 25 and his brother Ajaz Ahmed Mirza, 25, who worked as junior research scientist in DRDO, Abdulla alias Abdul Hakim Jamadaar, 25, Mohammed Yusuf Nalband, 28, Riyaz Ahmed Byahatti, 28 and Mati-ur-Rahman Siddiqui (journalist), 26. All were residing in a rented house in Munireddypalya in the RT Nagar area of Bangalore.

The police confiscated laptops, mobiles and a foreign-made 7.65 mm pistol with seven live cartridges from them.

An official involved in the investigations said accused Shoib alias Chotu, was trained in Pakistan by the LeT. The accused had also planned a terror attack in the IT city at the time of Ganesh Festival and they have already stolen and purchased a few bikes and four-wheelers for their operations.

This group was planning to eliminate a columnist of a Kannada newspaper and the editor-in-chief of the same newspaper (both residing in Bangalore) and had even conducted several reconnaissance and surveillance operations on their movements.
The Bangalore module members had allegedly also stolen a few vehicles to carry out their reconnaissance and surveillance of their targets and were caught in the nick of time, sources in the department said.

Meanwhile, another team of CCB officials nabbed members of the Hubli terror module who were shadowing politicians. The five arrested in Hubli have been identified as Obedulla Imran Bahadur alias Sameer alias Imran, 24, Mohammed Sadiq Lakshkar alias Raju, 28, Waahid Hussain alias Saahil, 26, Baba alias Mehaboob, 26, and Dr Jaffar Iqbal Sholapur, 27. Unlike their counterparts in Bangalore, the Hubli terror module members were picked up from various locations in Hubli.

Mirji said the arrests were the culmination of a three-month-long operation of the CCB which monitored the movement of the members of both the terror modules closely and picked them to avert averting a major terror attack.

The accused have been booked under 120 B , 153 B, 307, 379 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under Unlawful Assembly And Arms Act, Mirji said, adding that a case has been booked against all the 11 members in Basaveshwaranagar police station in Bangalore.

“Although we have been unable to establish their involvement in previous terror attacks, we are investigating to ascertain their role in circulating hate SMSes/MMSes which triggered the exodus of people from the northeast in the city,” Mirji said.

He said the police, on a tip-off, began collecting details about the accused persons and arrested them before they could launch their attack. “Preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused are members of international terrorist outfits and they have spread their links in Karnataka and other states,” he said.

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DNA special: MoD audit questions DRDO functioning

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DNA special: MoD audit questions DRDO functioning

Published: Wednesday, Aug 15, 2012, 10:00 IST

By Pradip R Sagar | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

Years after the CAG tore into DRDO and its functioning, a special audit has once again exposed the organisation and its chief, VK Saraswat, blaming him for passing on funds to a society in a clear case of conflict of interest.

The audit, conducted on the orders of defence minister AK Antony, has come down on the ‘arbitrary’ functioning of the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation).

The audit has highlighted questionable approval by scientific advisor to defence minister, Saraswat, of grant- in-aid of Rs2.9 crore to an academic institution he heads.

According to the report, accessed by the DNA, Saraswat sanctioned a grant of Rs2.88 crore to Hyderabad-based Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science (AIMCS) for research of futuristic radar systems.

Raising infirmities in the sanction, the audit report says, “AIMCS comprises scientists known for their achievement in mathematics, statistics and computer sciences and is not even generally connected with research relating to futuristic radars. And it (AIMCS) does not have any equipment and other wherewithal to undertake such research and development.”

The report says DRDO’s Bangalore-based LRDE (Electronics and Radar Development Establishment) is specifically meant for the evolution of the technologies relating to radars and has required number of scientists and equipment for conducting research of radars.

“It was thus strange to entrust this work to a Hyderabad-based academic institute. Further scrutiny has revealed as the grantee body did not have expert manpower, it started recruiting them after getting money from DRDO, which was liberally disbursed on annual basis.”

The report claims that release of advance payment to the society even for salary in respect of non-existent manpower blocks government funds and provides an opportunity to private society to earn ‘interest income’.

“DRDO is hiring a consultant and the consultant is also planning to hire consultants. This does not seem to be reasonable. Whether recruited personnel had DRDO connection needs to be seen further.”

The internal audit report prepared by senior additional controller general of defence account (ACGDA-Internal audit) maintained that DRDO has undertaken research project relating to radars and part of this research project was offloaded to a private society.

“As such it is only a sub-project of a main project. These facts were not however brought out in the file concerned.”

Interestingly, the report has also questioned another grant-in-aid of Rs3 crore to Dr SB Rao of the same institute, who is co-principal investigator under this radar research project. “A comparison of cost estimates between two projects suggested the possibility of different norms being adopted for costing and possible duplication.”

Comments

Raghubir Singh from Pune

Mathematics and statistics are much relevant like computers in radars as should be evident from some books on the subject. As such on the face of it Advanced Institute of Maths, Statistics & Computer Sciences (AIMCS) seems to have adequate credentials to carry out research in these areas relating to radar engineering? Generally research scholars are hired only after funding is available. For achieving self- reliance in defence , which should be our top priority now , it would be essential to encourage academic and other reputed institutions to take up research in areas which can have military applications. This is the model for defence research followed in other advanced countries including in the US which should suit us too? Now that DRDO is notching successive successes on daily basis–discomfiture of import lobby is understandable and this leakage of secret audit report hopefully is not to slow down the momentum?

Reply | Report abuse       Posted on: Aug 17, 2012 6:34 IST

Raghubir Singh from Pune

Mathematics and statistics are much relevant like computers in radars as should be evident from some books on the subject. As such on the face of it Advanced Institute of Maths, Statistics & Computer Sciences (AIMCS) seems to have adequate credentials to carry out research in these areas relating to radar engineering? Generally research scholars are hired after funding is available. For achieving self- reliance in defence , which should be our top priority now after revelations how the import lobby has tentacles everywhere including in our DPSU’s, it would be essential to encourage academic and other reputed institutions to take up research in areas which can have military applications. This is the model for defence research followed in other advanced countries including in the US which should suit us too? Now that DRDO is notching successive successes on daily basis–discomfiture of import lobby is understandable and this leakage of secret audit report is not to slow down the momentum-hopefully?

Reply | Report abuse       Posted on: Aug 16, 2012 8:47 IST

Raghubir Singh from Pune

It is not correct to say that there is no connection between mathematics, statistics and computer with radar. We can glance through ‘Mathematics of Radar’ by Bill Moran to feel some impact of mathematics on radars. In fact there are large number of books on mathematics of radar, synthetic aperture radar & tracking radar etc. Similarly probability of detection & statistics thereof do form important aspects of radar and need to be explored. Therefore AIMSC with its mathematics, statistics & computer credentials should be able to do research in these important areas relating to radar Futuristic radar or any other such system can see the light of the day only if we encourage academic or research institutions –not necessarily only govt labs to explore domains which have defence applications. To carry out, presumably theoretical work to begin with –the Institute would not need radar system which if required should be available in DRDO labs in Hyderabad? Research work is not production line –it needs new thinking, newer approaches and interfacing of academic, institutional and defence research work for military usage. The auditors & learned author can see

the research models in US & other countries. For sure research scholars for the project can be recruited only after funds are available

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DNA Exclusive: CAG nails NTRO; NSA sits on report

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DNA Exclusive: CAG nails NTRO; NSA sits on report

Published: Monday, Mar 5, 2012, 9:15 IST
By Saikat Datta | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

An aggressive audit of the country’s premier technical spying agency, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), by the CAG — the first time an intelligence agency has been audited — has revealed large-scale irregularities, corruption and several instances of official position/s being misused.

The report is unlikely to be made public or even placed before Parliament, but is bound to raise questions on National Security Adviser (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon’s role as he has not taken any action on the report for months. The NTRO does not come under any ministry and it reports directly to the NSA.

India is one of the few democracies where Parliament has no supervisory control over intelligence agencies. The report comes at a time when there is tremendous churning within the intelligence community with calls for greater accountability and transparency.

The CAG summarised its findings while replying to former NTRO joint secretary VK Mittal’s query under RTI seeking details of the audit. It says the CAG has “noticed cases of appointment of ineligible candidates” confirming fears that the agency has been flouting rules while recruiting senior people.

A source told DNA that this has resulted in people being recruited based on their “connections” rather than merit. In fact, IPS officer Jaijeet Singh (Maharashtra cadre) who joined the NTRO last year is probing such cases. So far, five people — either of the rank of joint secretary or director — are under the scanner. The “illegal recruits” include Commander Manoj Modi from the navy, LtCol Sachin Burman, part of the cyber-espionage team, Pramod Prasad, Ruchichandra Srivastava and HS Dhillon.

The CAG found that contractual appointments of senior officers were not transparent. Financial rules were flouted while recruiting Brigadier Anil Malhotra on contract. Malhotra dealt with counter-intelligence and internal security.

The report also talks of several senior officers “misusing” their positions. Chief among them is MS Vijaraghavan, currently the second-in-command in the NTRO.

The fact that he used a prime property in New Delhi’s posh Hauz Khas enclave as his personal residence — rent bills ran into lakhs — left the organisation embarrassed. The CAG recorded several instances of “misuse of official power”, many being committed by Vijayraghavan. Despite all this, he still holds a sensitive post because the government has chosen to ignore the charges against him.

PV Kumar, the present NTRO chairman, too investigated the mess and sent his report to the NSA, Menon. But he has been sitting on both reports for months. And the picture is unlikely to change because neither report would be tabled in Parliament. The reason: the reports are confidential.

The CAG said in an earlier reply, November 28, 2011, under RTI that neither the NTRO nor the NSA has sent any “action-taken” report. DNA has learnt that the CAG has found at least 143 instances of illegal recruitments. It has also found “non-compliance of rules” in procurement of systems and equipment. This means kickbacks could have been part of the several purchases made by NTRO.

The NTRO was set up after the Kargil war to coordinate all technical intelligence efforts. But the organisation has failed to take off because of nepotism and corruption. Even Union home minister P Chidamabaram refused to include the agency in his daily intelligence briefings. The home ministry recently denied it the status of a notified agency that could legally intercept phones and emails of the people of the country.