In a recent revelation, documents related to foreign countries were leaked by a Singapore-based firm ‘iSoon’ believed to be close to the Chinese government and its security establishment. The data was leaked on GitHub and is believed to be authentic by cyber experts.. It is suspected that the cybersecurity firm has been sharing crucial data of 20 foreign governments to China. Amongst the list of foreign targets was India exploiting vulnerabilities of major companies and ministries.
A report by the Washington Post sheds light on the groups attempted cyber-hacking of companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple. The sophisticated cyber operations include clandestine operations and extensive surveillance of foreign nations such as Taiwan, South Korea and India among others in Asia.
In India, the primary targets were Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). BSNL users’ data of Indian business companies such as Air India and Reliance, have also been compromised. Targets among the government were the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported by India Today.
In 2018, after reports surfaced of EPFO systems being breached, they initially denied that their servers were compromised, rather, they informed that the Common Service Centre (CSCs) software were breached. Some of the documents also indicate that the 2018 breach of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) was also related to Chinese hackers. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) is looking into the details of the event.
According to an analysis by the Washington Post, around 95 gigabytes of data related to Indian immigrants was also leaked. It seems that most of the cyberattacks took place between 2020 and 2022, right when India and China’s relations were under maximum tension.
Hundreds, if not thousands of files, chat logs and images and other documents have posted on the net.
A report in Indian Express informs that Cert-In is analysing whether the leaked data is recent or from previous hacking attempts such as the AIMS Delhi 2022 cyber attack.
According to a report from Cyfirma, another Singapore-based cybersecurity firm has said that India is the most attacked country in the world by cyberhackers. Due to such cyber-attacks the central government had set up guidelines to deal with cybersecurity issues in the 2023 National Cybersecurity Reference Framework (NCRF).
Instances of Chinese involvement in cyberattacks on India are not at all new. Even in 2021, it is believed that India’s power grids were linked to China-related cyber hacking. But it’s interesting to note, that even China’s friends are not off limits to such hacking incidents by China-related firms.
Nitish Chavan
