President’s Secretariat spoofed?

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http://www.timesnow.tv/Sensitive-information-extracted/videoshow/4432381.cms 

IB note indicates that espionage agents have extracted sensitive information

Thursday, July 18 2013 - Times Now is in possession of exclusive documents from the Intelligence Bureau dated July 9, 2013 which indicates that the President’s Secretariat has been spoofed by espionage agents from enemy countries. The documents, clearly raises an alarm, as it says that these espionage agents have been successful in extracting sensitive information by adopting spoofing techniques. 

Spoofing is a situation where a caller masquerades as someone else and falsely identifies himself and gains an illegitimate advantage over sensitive information. For instance, if a call is made by an ISI operative from Karachi to a Delhi number, sometimes even the number that is displayed on the caller id in Delhi would resemble a “Delhi-like” number.   

Earlier, Times Now had reported on an Intelligence communication between the IB to other agencies on how spoofing technique was used by an ISI agent in Pakistan immediately after the Dilsukhnagar blasts in Hyderabad. In that case, the spoofer – an ISI operative had identified himself as a Military Intelligence personnel from India and had spoken to the NSG officers on duty in Hyderabad and elicited sensitive information relating to the blasts from the Indian officers. Since that incident, several corrective measures were introduced by the Ministry of Home Affairs as a counter measure to combat spoofing from espionage agents from neighbouring countries.  But the present incident of spoofing in the President’s Secretariat clearly indicates that effective systems are still not in place to fight spoofing. 

While the documents available with Times Now clearly indicates that some officials within the President’s Secretariat had given away sensitive information to espionage agents, the question is whether these officials have been identified and put to task. When Times Now approached the President’s Secretariat on the issue, we have been asked to get in touch with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The question that still remains unanswered is to what extent has national security been compromised and whether corrective measures have been finally put in place.

by Prema Sridevi