New Delhi: According to a two year investigation report by US-based IT security firm, a Pakistani cyber firm with close ties to Islamabad has been found stealing information from Indian government and defence establishments.
The US security firm, FireEye, said, the findings revealing that India remains a vulnerable target for cyber attacks even after documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed widespread spying by US National Security Agency.
According to FireEye, an Islamabad-based firm called Tranchulas, which claims to have helped prepare Pakistani government for cyber warfare, bombarded officials in Indian government with emails containing malicious software.
The firm used 'Sarabjit Singh', 'Devyani Khoragade', 'Salary hikes for government employees' in the subject line of the emails to lure officials into opening attachments containing the malware, which would then infect the computers and collect an assortment of data that it would send to the cyber attacker.
A senior Indian intelligence official confirmed Indian establishments were targets of cyber spying, but said the attackers could not be traced. "We have seen many such attacks targeting Indian government and defence establishments, but in cyber space it is very hard to ascertain the actual source."
Manish Gupta, senior vice president at FireEye, told ET, "They are essentially penetrating Indian government accounts to find out what the Indian government is up to”.
"They are also targeting defence organisations. Some of the things that could be important to them could be what kind of weapons does India have, where are these weapons deployed, how many people are deployed in these regions, what is the s organization structure, are there any military exercises planned."
According to FireEye, an Islamabad-based IT security firm called Tranchulas, which claims to have helped prepare the Pakistani government for cyber warfare, bombarded officials in Indian government organizations with emails containing malicious software, or malware.
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