Officials of the Indian Government have stated that the computer network of the Ministry of External Affairs has been broken into, allegedly by the Chinese hackers. At present, India’s relationship with China is in a very sensitive state because of the Tibet issue. This alleged hacking into MEA’s computer network is now bound to take centerstage in determining the India and China bond. The MEA has, however, officially refrained from either denying or confirming the reports.

 

The hackers broke into the internal communications network of the MEA, probably going through the e-mails bearing information on policies and decision matters across the ministry’s offices in India and in their foreign missions. The communication with foreign missions is encrypted to ensure security. But hacking the network would assist a hacker to access the internal policy-matters.

 

Hackers barge into an encrypted computer network with the help of programmes and writing software to decrypt the system, says Ashish Bhatia, security systems expert. A similar charge was made on the Chinese government in June previous year, which it denied. Then they were accused of hacking into a system at the Pentagon, the US defence headquarters.