The FBI is reportedly investigating an alleged hack that extracted a number of internal e-mails from networks administered by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The security breach was first publicized by an Indian hacktivist belonging to the “Lords of Dharmaraja,” a group which recently leaked the source code of a Norton antivirus product.
According to “YamaTough,” the e-mail extraction was executed by Indian government operatives (under the auspices of military intelligence) who also infiltrated other sensitive US government networks using backdoors purportedly supplied by RIM, Nokia and Apple (RINOA SUR).
Unsurprisingly, both Apple and RIM have denied cooperating with Indian intelligence agencies, while Nokia has yet to comment on the allegations.
As the Financial Times points out, India is currently “preoccupied” with what it perceives to be a growing security threat posed by neighboring China to the world’s largest democracy.
“[India] worries about the possible emergence of a so-called ‘G2’ between China and the US, and was riled two years ago by President Barack Obama’s suggestion on a visit to Beijing that China play a role in south Asian stability,” explained James Lamont of the FT.
“If genuine, the [information from the Lords of Dharmaraja] would suggest Indian spies were interested in how US economic engagement, by the likes of engineering group General Electric, might bolster China’s technological prowess and Washington’s view of manipulation of the renminbi.”
Meanwhile, the Lords of Dharmaraja hacking team told Anthony M. Freed of InfoSec Island that it was a pro-American group determined to publicize the inherent corruption plaguing the Indian political system.
“My team is pro US, we fight for rights in our country we are not intentionally harm US companies (sometimes we do hack into since our botnet is worldwide) but we do not steal credit cards and make money off it and we do not do banks etc. Our mission – exposure of the corruption,” YamaTough claimed.
“We wanna apologize for harm taken by the Symantec USCC and others, but without them being involved things which do occur in our state would never be covered and taken to the public, sometimes you have to sacrifice in order to achieve… and we do not approve sharing personal data and source codes with foreign governments. We want [a] free and nice India and not [a] police state.”
