The 3.5 Bn US dollars Deal on India's Scorpene Submarines Leaked

BENGALURU: Highly sensitive details of documents, detailing the secret combat capabilities of six submarines being built in Mumbai, have been leaked. So crucial for India's security, the Scorpene-class submarines that French shipbuilder DCNS designed, has triggered an investigation on the Indian Navy. It is said that one of the world's largest defense projects has been compromised and could prove to a windfall for country’s rivals such as Pakistan, China, etc.

 The leak of more than 22,000 pages lists the combat capabilities and other vital information regarding Scorpene submarine. The leaking will cause to trigger off countries that operate a variant of the Scorpene, or have ordered the submarine, including Malaysia, Chile and Brazil, reported The Australian newspaper.

The first of its class, deal of six Scorpene-class submarines are worth 3.5 Bn US dollars and had hardly begun its sea trials in the Mumbai. They are so silent underwater that, if not impossible, it is extremely difficult to detect. But the leak tells all—sonar capabilities, noise generation, and combat system details they are armed with.

"This came to my knowledge at 12 midnight, it is a case of hacking," says Manohar Parrikar, Defense Minister of India said on Wednesday. "The first step is to identify if it's related to us, and anyway it's not (at) all a 100% leak," he added.

Navy sources of India said that the leak has took place "outside India", they are confident about the fact that the documents appeared to be in different configurations than what was finalized for India, and strongly implied that "the damage does not seem to be substantial" even as analysts suggested it as incorrect.

Ship maker DCNS have initiated the inquiry from their end. The French national security authorities are investigating the size, seriousness and cause of the leak, which DCNS suggests, could be a part of "an economic war" with competitors.

DCNS, whose two-third is owned by the French government, will be designing 12 new submarines for Australia; deal is worth 50 bn US dollars, and the leak might compromise the security of classified data on the submarines, as per the report. Though, the documents released do not contain any details of the vessel being designed for the Australian fleet.

“Multiple and independent controls exist within DCNS to prevent unauthorized access to data. In the case of India, DCNS design is built by a local company; it’s not the controller of technical data. However, in the case of Australia, DCNS is both the provider and in-country controller of technical data for the full chain of transmission and usage over the life of the submarines,” DCNS was quoted as saying by The Daily.

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