Duped! Cybercriminals rob ONGC off Rs 197 crore

MUMBAI, INDIA: The `G’ spelt the doom for ONGC.

In perhaps one of the biggest cybercrimes involving a large public sector unit (PSU) in India, cybercriminals have duped and robbed Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) off Rs 197 crore.

According to a FIR filed by the cybercrime cell in the Bandra Kurla police station, Mumbai, hackers managed to hack into the account of an employee and made minor changes in his email id, and injecting malware which despatched the email communiqué to both ONGC as well as the hackers.

According to the BKC cyber police team probing the case, ONGC had an order to deliver 36,000 metric tonnes of Naphtha — flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixtures — to Saudi Aramco, an oil company based in Dhahran.

During investigations led by Additional Commissioner of Police KMM Prasanna and his team found that someone aware of the e-mail communication between ONGC and Aramco regarding the transfer of a large sum of money, had created a fake e-mail ID similar to the official ONGC email ID.

Till then, it was too late as Aramco had already deposited the money into the fake bank account.

“While ONGC used patel_dv@ongc.co.in for official communication, the hackers tweaked it to the e-mail address to patel_dv@ognc.co.in,” senior police inspector S Mahadik, informed the Indian Express.

Using this ID, the fraudsters communicated with Aramco, and as the second email ID appeared almost identical to the original, Aramco officials did not notice the difference. The fraudsters then sent an e-mail asking for the payment to be deposited to a Bangkok-based account.

Officers of the BKC cyber police station said an FIR has been registered under Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471(using a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 66 C (punishment for identity theft) and D (cheating by impersonation using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.

ONGC was unavailable for comment, IE said.