Vendor in Somalia, account in Dubai: ISA traces cybercrime incidents

In two incidents of cybercrime in a month, India's first global outreach body International Solar Alliance (ISA) has claimed to have lost ₹3 crore when a payment to its Somalia-based vendor was found to be diverted to an imposter account, prompting the organisation to file a police complaint and issue show-cause notice to a section of its staff suspected to be involved in the incident.

- SHREYA JAI

The ISA has acknowledged the incident, which occurred in September, in a letter to Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Pralhad Joshi, who also heads the organisation currently.

“The cyber attacker changed the details of the banks of our international vendors and sent invoices for payments (which had to be made to our vendors) to be paid to the fraudulent bank accounts. The hacker replaced original emails and planted fraudulent emails with a request letter and invoices to be paid to fraudulent bank accounts,” the letter by ISA Director General Ajay Mathur to the minister said.

The organisation said that the payment was intended for Somalia-based vendors of ISA which engage in the outreach and infrastructure building activities of the organisation in the region, it said.