Corporate espionage: NDA government orders security audit of computers, vetting of staff

NEW DELHI: Government has ordered security audit of official computers and security vetting of staff of major Ministries and departments following detection of corporate espionage.

The decisions have been taken at a high-level meeting convened by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth and attended by top officials, including Home Secretary L C Goyal, yesterday.

It was also decided that present access control mechanism in the ministries and departments will undergo sweeping changes while electronic surveillance will be upgraded to ensure a "leak-proof" system, official sources said.

Each ministry and department will appoint a Joint Secretary-level officer as departmental security officer to ensure foolproof security of official documents and computers.

The meeting decided that manual of departmental security instructions prepared by the Home Ministry will be issued to each of the ministry and department, sources said.

Following the detection of corporate espionage case, government has decided to crackdown on those who are involved in leaking of official documents.

The decisions of the high-level meeting were part of the government's move to tighten security of ministries and departments and stop leakage of documents and other information.

Cracking down on a suspected case of corporate espionage, Delhi Police on Thursday arrested two junior Oil Ministry officials and three other persons for allegedly leaking classified government documents to energy companies.

On Friday last, two energy consultants Santanu Saikia and Prayas Jain and five senior executives from top energy firms were arrested.

A casual worker in the Defence Ministry has also been arrested for allegedly providing forged identity card to a key accused in the Petroleum Ministry leaks case.