Indian IT major, Satyam Technologies is in major trouble with one of its clients, World Bank Group's computer network — one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation — has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year.
Its to be noted that Satyam, one of India's largest IT services companies, has been handling several IT services functions for the World Bank since July 2003. The contract was due to be renewed this September but was allowed to lapse.
The story, the details of which were contested by the World Bank after it ran, quotes unnamed sources as saying the banking group was victimized by at least six major intrusions from the Summer of 2007 through September of this year.
At least two of the intrusions appear to have originated from the same batch of IP addresses within China, the report said. The first of the intrusions, from China, was discovered in Sept. 2007 when the FBI apparently informed the bank of the problem which it discovered while it was conducting an unrelated investigation. It apparently allowed the perpetrators to gain full and complete access to a secret data hub maintained by the organization in Johannesburg, South Africa for a period of at least six months, the Fox News story said.
Another of the breaches, this time involving the bank's treasury network in Washington D.C, appears to have been perpetrated by a contractor or contractors working for India's Satyam Computer Services, the story said. The Satyam employee or contractor infected some workstations at the banks headquarters in Washington with keystroke logging software, which then sent any information it captured to a still unknown location.
Satyam has refuted the charges
“The story cites misinformation from unattributed sources and leaked e-mails that are taken out of context,” the statement said.
“Like other public and private institutions, the World Bank has repeatedly experienced hacking attacks on its computer systems and is constantly updating its security to defeat these,” it said.
“But at no point has a hacking attack accessed sensitive information in the World Bank’s Treasury, procurement, anti-corruption or human resources departments,” the spokesperson said quoting the bank’s statement.
This would be the worst case publicity for Indian IT companies if this comes out to be true.