The 22,400 leaked pages, which the daily said it had seen, detail the combat capability of the Scorpene- class DCNS submarine designed for the Indian Navy, variants of which are used by Malaysia and Chile.
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“The embarrassment is more for France, but it should not have happened”, sources said.
The primary contract for the construction of the Scorpene submarines was between the Mumbai-based Mazagon Dock Ltd. (MDL) and the French firm Armaris.
The first of the Scorpene class submarines – Kalvari – went for trial in May 2016. Once the information is put up before me by the Navy, only then will a clear picture emerge.
DCNS said it could not rule out that the leak was part of an “economic war” by competitors after the firm won a tender in Australia earlier this year. The contractor is also vying for submarine contracts in Norway and Poland, and it has outshone bids by Germany’s ThyssenKrupp AG and Japanese government-backed Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries for a deal in Australia. It allows them to understand everything about the submarines.
The Congress on Wednesday accused the government of “cover-up” over the alleged data leak of the Scorpene submarine, which it said had “gravely compromised” India’s national security.
“DCNS has been made aware of articles published in the Australian press related to the leakage of sensitive data about Indian Scorpene”.
DCNS confirmed the “serious leak”, adding that an investigation has been launched.
The data tells the submarine crew where on the boat they can speak safely to avoid detection by the enemy. The data include 4,457 pages on underwater sensors, 4,209 pages on above-water sensors, 4,301 pages on combat management system, 493 pages on torpedo launch system, 6,841 pages on communications system and 2,138 on navigation systems. The Indian Navy states that “source of leaks is overseas and not in India”.
“I can not categorically say whether there was any hacking or leak”. “It could well be any of them”, an official said. What we have before us are just claims that thousands of documents have been leaked. The French Defence Ministry declined to make an immediate comment. “So we will find out all these aspects”, he said.
As per the plan, 24 new submarines were to be added by 2024.
The leak of DCNS’s data is another proof point that it’s incredibly hard to keep critical intellectual property safe and secure in today’s world of highly interconnected global manufacturing. It was banned in the wake of Augusta Westland VVIP helicopter scam.
“This (the report) came to my knowledge at 12 midnight, it is a case of hacking. I am very concerned about this”, Senator Xenophon said.
The Defence Minister said he does not suspect the leak to be 100 per cent since a lot of final integration lies with India.
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Submarine operations are married to the principles of stealth and reams of data in public domain can jeopardise security as the rival navies – particularly that of China and Pakistan – now have access to the information on a platter. At the time of The Australian’s report, DCNS suggested that that the leak did not occur from its end, but potentially India. “Nevertheless, any leak of classified information was a concern”, he was quoted as saying, reports PTI. One official also recalled that a key official of Thales, one of the French companies involved in the contract, left midway and returned to the project recently. In the case of India, where a DCNS design is built by a local company, DCNS is the provider and not the controller of technical data.
