The 22,400 leaked pages, which the newspaper said it had seen, detail the combat capability of the Scorpene-class submarine DCNS designed for the Indian navy, variants of which are used by Malaysia and Chile. “It appears that the source of leak is from overseas and not in India”, the Indian Express reported.
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“The documents that have been posted. have been examined and do not pose any security compromise as the vital parameters have been blacked out”, the defense ministry said in a statement.
“What I understand right now is that there is a case of hacking”, Indian Minister of Defense Manohar Parrikar told reporters on Wednesday. “So we will find out all this”, Parrikar had said.
“The matters in connection to India have no bearing on the Australian submarine program which operates under the Australian government’s arrangements for the protection of sensitive data”, the DCNS spokesperson added.
Submarine Institute of Australia executive director David Nicholls said Australian submarine programs have always been managed under stringent security requirements which protected all information and technical data.
According to former naval officer Uday Bhaskar, however, the damage has already been done, as the leak had “compromised” the credibility of the submarines, which are now being built in shipyard in Mumbai. Brazil is also due to deploy the vessels from 2018.
The Scorpenes are considered some of the most advanced of their class in the world.
This serious matter is thoroughly investigated by the proper French national authorities for defence security. “It’s part of the tools in economic war”, a spokesman said.
The Indian Navy ordered six Scorpene submarines from DCNS. “It needs to be verified if the leaked documents are authentic”, an MDL official said reacting to the reports of the massive data leak.
India has spent $3.9 billion on six conventionally powered Scorpene submarines built by France’s DCNS and inducted for trial in 2015. DCNS, which is two-thirds owned by the French government, will design 12 new submarines for Australia. But Australian newspaper has published this because the same company is giving services to the Australian Government also.
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DCNS, whose two-third is owned by the French government, will be designing 12 new submarines for Australia; deal is worth 50 bn U.S. dollars, and the leak might compromise the security of classified data on the submarines, as per the report.
