The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Two held for `hacking' into company website

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 11, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Two held for `hacking' into company website

Staff Reporter

Sundram Fasteners' information sold to competitor in Haryana Sundram Fasteners' information sold to competitor in Haryana

CHENNAI: The Cyber Wing of the City Central Crime Branch police arrested two former employees of Sundram Fasteners last week on charges of `hacking' into the company's website and selling industrial information to a competitor.

The police identified the arrested as V.S. Sriram and S.Yadhava Moorthy.

R. Nataraj, Greater Chennai Police Commissioner, said he received a complaint last month from Ravikumar, Deputy General Manager, Sundram Fasteners, who said that the company's confidential information was stolen and sold to their competitors. Due to this the company incurred a huge loss.

Preliminary investigations by the Cyber Wing authorities revealed that someone from Visakhapatnam had "illegally entered the Sundram Fasteners computer server, from where confidential information" was stolen.

Checks in Haryana, Delhi

It was then sold to a competitor in Faridabad, Haryana. The police then conducted checks at companies in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana.

Mr. Nataraj said the team seized a hard disc from a private casting company at Vishakapatnam last week and arrested Sriram (38).

He had allegedly stolen the confidential information and sold it to a company in Faridabad.

Police also seized a cellular phone allegedly used by him.

Mr. Nataraj said Sriram had allegedly sold the information to Yadhava Moorthy (52), vice-president of the Faridabad-based casting company. On Saturday last, the cyber wing police personnel raided the company and seized a laptop and a cellular phones used for the illegal transaction, Mr. Nataraj said.

The police registered cases under Section 66 (Hacking) of the Information Technology Act and under Section 120 B (Criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. After obtaining a transit warrant from a Faridabad court, both were brought to the city and a magistrate in the Saidapet court remanded them to judicial custody till October 21.

Mr Nataraj said hitherto the Cyber Wing had arrested persons involved in offences such as sending obscene messages to women. "Now, the arrest of the two clearly showed that the Cyber Wing has equipped itself well to handle industrial espionage such as this one."

He also warned that any such piracy would be dealt with seriously.

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