Hacking of defence ministry, DRDO computers may have led to leak of information

NEW DELHI: Some classified military material may have been compromised when around 50 computers belonging to the armed forces in South Block as well as DRDO were hacked in December.

Though national security adviser Shivshankar Menon on Thursday played down the incident, a fresh advisory has been issued in the defence establishment after the security breach about the urgent need to keep computers with internet facilities separate from those on which confidential work is done.

Menon, on his part, said there were "various forms of compromise" and "not every leaked password is a big threat" to security. "A mere fact that some computer is open in North Block and South Block and is accessible, does not mean that therefore there is big gap in security," he said.

Military officers say cyber security and computer usage norms have been further tightened for all its personnel to prevent the "leaking'' of confidential data and information, apart from reiterating strict orders to refrain from posting classified information on social networking websites.

This comes in the backdrop of mounting online espionage attempts, mainly by China and Pakistan, as also several cases of officers inadvertently posting classified information on social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and Twitter.  Ankur mishra  pgdm 1st source - times of india