07 June,2010 08:40 AM IST | | Anshuman G Dutta
The force has decided to rope in experts against hackers
The armed forces never shied away from roping in the best brains in the country to upgrade their systems and now it's the turn of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to secure the cyber systems of the Indian Air Force (IAF). Following the recent cyber attack from the Chinese hackers, the IAF is planning to rope in experts from IIT Delhi and Powai to upgrade their cyber network.
Sources on condition of anonymity said that talks are on and the IITs have already proposed certain software to improve the system, which has been facing hacking threat from the Chinese and others. "Presently the cyber networks are divided into confidential, secret and top secret categories. We are looking forward to enhance the system and take it at least into the secret level to rule out any breach," said an official from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
While IAF officials and cyber experts are going full throttle in finding out loopholes in the Air Force Network (AFNET), participation from IIT experts would assure an open evaluation of their systems.
The AFNET operates on a higher spectrum and connects all air force bases and offices into a single system. While the exchange of all normal and voice enabled data is considered safer it came into criticism after reports of breach from Chinese hackers.
Of late the Chinese have hacked into IAF's secure network more than 2000 times and it is believed that the hackers have gathered complete information about IAF's various formations and other secret information related to weapons and armaments.
Most sensitive leaks came in the form of the information related to IAF's assets located on the borders of the country. As per the sources, these shadow hackersu00a0 siphoned off critical information from three important IAF bases.
