Navy to prevent recurrence of war room leaks

New Delhi, May 18: The Navy is taking a number of steps to prevent recurrence of the leakage of its war room secrets, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee informed the Lok Sabha today.

To prevent such incidents in future, re-configuration of Local Area Network in the Directorate of Naval Operations has been undertaken to limit the number of users and to limit access by way of authorisation and modification of access control passwords, the Minister said in a written reply.

Measures are also instituted to monitor the usage of the network by Naval personnel authorised to hold sensitive information. A comprehensive Indian Naval Book of Reference on ''Technology Information Security'' related issues has been promulgated, he said.

A number of policy letters and guidelines are already in place to ensure security of information stored in computers.

Giving details of the investigation into the recent leakage of classified information from the Naval War Room, he said the CBI has registered a case on March 20 under section 120-B of the IPC read with sections 3(1)(c) and 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923.

In the course of investigations, it has carried out raids, seizures and arrests in the case.

As the CBI investigations are continuing, details of persons involved cannot be indicated at this stage. However, six persons have been arrested in the case so far, Mr Mukherjee said.

UNI