Chinese agents hack into India's secret documents: Report

Major Indian missile and armament systems may have been compromised as Chinese hackers have reportedly broken into top secret files of the Indian Defence Ministry and embassies around the world.

Major Indian missile and armament systems may have been compromised as Chinese hackers have reportedly broken into top secret files of the Indian Defence Ministry and embassies around the world.

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Among the systems leaked out could be Shakti, the just introduced advanced artillery combat and control system of the Indian Army and the country's new mobile missile defence system called the Iron Dome.

A new report called 'Shadow in the Clouds' by Canadian and American researchers based at the University of Toronto has said that a spy operation called 'Shadow Network' based out of China has tapped into top secret files of the Indian government.

In the investigations conducted over eight months, the report claimed that systematic cyber espionage was carried out from servers located in China that "compromised" government, business, academic and other computer network systems in India.

The report finds that Indian government related entities, both in India and throughout the world, had been thoroughly compromised.

"These include documents from the Offices of the Dalai Lama and agencies of the Indian national security establishment," the report said.

"Data containing sensitive information on citizens of numerous third-party countries, as well as personal, financial, and business information, were also exfiltrated and recovered during the course of the investigation," it said.

"Recovery and analysis of exfiltrated data, including one document that appears to be encrypted diplomatic correspondence, two documents marked "SECRET", six as "RESTRICTED", and five as "CONFIDENTIAL". These documents are identified as belonging to the Indian government," it added.