India’s defence minister said documents relating to the French Scorpene submarine being built in the country appeared to have been hacked after an Australian newspaper reported a leak of thousands of pages detailing the vessel’s top-secret capability.
“I understand there has been a case of hacking, we will find out what has happened,” Manohar Parrikar told reporters.
The submarines are being built at a state-run shipyard in Mumbai in collaboration with France’s DCNS Group.
The French shipbuilder which earlier this year won an A$50 billion ($38.06 billion) contract to build Australia’s next generation of submarines has suffered a massive data leak, raising doubts about the security of one of the world’s biggest defence projects.
France’s DCNS Group beat out Germany’s ThyssenKrupp AG and a Japanese-government backed a bid by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, in a blow to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to develop defence export capabilities as part of a more muscular security agenda.