‘Verifying authenticity’: DRDO sources on report claiming DRDO data put on dark web

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NEW DELHI/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A threat actor recently offered allegedly stolen Defence Research and Development Organisation and military data for $8,000 on the dark web, according to a report by Alibi Global Threat Intelligence Group.According to the Alibi Global report, the alleged 31 GB of data has reportedly been advertised for sale for the past two weeks. The publicly available sample documents allegedly released as proof of data appear to contain restricted technical information purportedly related to approvals or signatures of senior scientists.When contacted, DRDO sources told TOI that they “are verifying the authenticity of this report”.The discovery was made by Alibi Global, a Thiruvananthapuram-based cyber forensics and defence solutions company that provides dark web monitoring and cyber intelligence services to government agencies and critical infrastructure organisations. The firm said it routinely scans underground forums, ransomware leak sites and dark web marketplaces to identify potential threats involving sensitive Indian data.“As part of our continuous dark web monitoring, we identified a set of documents … that appeared to be highly sensitive. Following our standard operating procedure, we immediately informed the Intelligence Bureau. The authenticity of the documents and the extent of any possible exposure will now have to be established by the concerned government agencies,” VK Bhadran, technical director of Alibi Global, told TOI.Cybersecurity specialists have called for urgent forensic verification of these claims as they say the sample available in the public domain requires detailed technical and forensic scrutiny and also to find out if the data actually originated from DRDO or from some other defence organisation.Last year, in March, a hacking group called Babuk Locker 2.0, which was originally a Thai group and was later run by a different set of hackers, claimed responsibility for infiltrating DRDO’s systems.However, defence and security authorities had then said a review of the released documents did not show any actual intrusion into the Indian security system.The files and documents seemed to have been hacked from an internet-linked computer belonging to an IAS officer.