The Delhi Police has launched investigations following a written complaint by a serving Brigadier, currently posted at Army headquarters that his Gmail account was hacked while he was attending a course at the USA from August 1 to August 25 this year followed by 14 days of leave.
What has shocked the security establishments is the revelation that sensitive information was sent to an unknown email ID. The Crime Branch has registered a first information report (FIR) under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act at its police station against unknown persons.
Brigadier Sanjay Puri, posted at the Directorate of Perspective Planning in Intelligence Headquarters of Ministry of Defence, has expressed apprehensions that the information passed on may lead to compromising of national security.
Brigadier Puri in his complaint to police said his mail was hacked on August 9.
“I immediately informed the DCP crime in this regard. I returned to India on September 7. On August 10, I tried logging in my account but it would not open. After coming back home, I again tried to log in from my laptop but the same problem persisted. Each time it would give a message that my password has been changed 10 hours ago,” alleged Puri.
The Brigadier then contacted his nephew in Washington DC and niece in California, who helped him recover the email account with the help of Google and it was found that his account was hacked from the Internet Protocol address 59.177.67.89 which belongs to India.
“After restoring my account I realised that all my files from my inbox, special folders and items were sent to an unknown account in the name of shweta.hannah@gmail.com,” said Puri
“Hackers who might be working for terrorist outfits such as lashkar-e-Taiyyeba (leT) and ISIS or Indian Mujahideen (IM) are reportedly trying to hack the emails of serving Indian Army officials especially those handling sensitive posts to know the ongoing army operations and other information. This is a serious case that can imperil national security,” said a senior police official. Efforts are on to identify the hacker and the beneficiary both, the official added.