Institute For Ethical Hacking Course and Ethical Hacking Training in Pune – India

Extreme Hacking | Sadik Shaikh | Cyber Suraksha Abhiyan 

Credits: Economic Times

The cyber crime unit of the Gurgaon police is close to completing a year-long investigation into a complaint filed by InterGlobe Aviation, which runs IndiGo, against a former employee that she allegedly conspired to steal proprietary and confidential information, and use the data at competitor SpiceJet

InterGlobe has accused Pahuna Lal, former assistant manager, financial planning and analysis at IndiGo, of stealing financial and price-sensitive information to deploy and use it in her position with SpiceJet. Lal quit IndiGo and directly joined SpiceJet as deputy general manager, corporate strategy and projects, in September 2015.

Gurgaon-based InterGlobe complained in a First Information Report (FIR) that Lal “dishonestly copied” information on total departures, fleet purchase plans, aircraft and balance sheet specifications, including ten-year financial projections, among other data. The alleged theft, it said, caused it “wrongful loss” and “wrongful gain to Lal and her co-conspirators”.

Responding to ET’s questions on the accusations by IndiGo, Lal denied doing any wrong and said she is determined to explore the strictest possible legal action against IndiGo and its management for harassment, intimidation and maligning her reputation. “The FIR filed by IndiGo is frivolous and utterly false. It has been filed because I am a woman, and therefore, IndiGo feels that I can be intimidated,” she said.

Anand Kumar, the head of Gurgaon cyber crime unit, declined comment.

A spokesman for SpiceJet said the airline is confident that there is no wrongdoing whatsoever on the part of Lal. “This FIR has been filed against an employee of SpiceJet. SpiceJet is not an accused in this complaint. No questions have been asked nor any investigation is directed towards SpiceJet.”

IndiGo did not comment for this article, but a person familiar with the FIR said, “Any legal action takes thought.” He did not elaborate.

One of the investigating officers told ET the points raised by Lal in her defence during questioning are valid and will be investigated. He did not want to be identified.

SpiceJet too has started legal action against two of its former employees. It has sought Rs 2 crore each in damages from the employees to restrain them from taking up employment with any third party, including a competing airline, without serving a notice period, and from revealing confidential information to any competitor. The cases are ongoing at the Delhi High Court.

At IndiGo, Lal was part of the team that helped with the preparations of the company’s stock market listing. She was responsible for its business plan and model, ad hoc what-if analysis, investor presentations, collation of data and financial analysis, among other duties, according to InterGlobe.Lal violated a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement that she signed under her terms of employment, which barred her from making copies of confidential information and disclosing it to a third party, it alleged. IndiGo was listed on November 10, 2015.

ET has reviewed a copy of the FIR that Rahul Kumar, senior legal counsel of InterGlobe, filed on February 18, 2016 at the DLF Phase-1 police station in Gurgaon. Lal and other known and unknown persons have been booked for cognisable offences punishable under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology Act 2000

The sections under IPC call for imprisonment of up to seven years and fines for offences such as criminal conspiracy, theft, cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may ensue, dishonestly inducing delivery of property etc. The sections under the IT Act call for imprisonment of up to two years and compensation of Rs 1 lakh for downloading, copying or extracting data from computers, for dishonestly receiving stolen computer resource or communication device, for breach of confidentiality and privacy etc.

Due to the alleged offences under the IT Act, the case was transferred to the cyber crime unit.

The investigation was delayed due to an overload of cases and unavailability of Lal who was on maternity leave last year, said the investigating officer quoted above.

InterGlobe in its FIR said IndiGo in 2013 began installing data loss prevention (DLP) software on all computers to determine whether confidential information has been viewed in an unauthorised manner or copied and altered. But Lal dishonestly prevented the installation of the software on her laptop on one or the other pretext, it alleged.

The software was finally installed on June 5, 2015. But on July 2, 2015, Lal resigned from IndiGo and her last working day was September 4, 2015, according to InterGlobe.
Lal said this allegation is false. “I did not resist the installation, which was ongoing across the company and was done in my computer only in June 2015.”

After Lal resigned, InterGlobe alleged that a routine internal security audit revealed that she fraudulently accessed the company network and copied a large number of confidential files onto removable data storage devices without consent. Lal did this while serving her notice period, knowing fully well she would be employed with a competing airline, it said.

Lal fraudulently copied 1,377 files in June 2015 and 3,362 files in September 2015, InterGlobe said. The largest number of files were copied and stolen by Lal on her last working day at IndiGo, when she spent almost five hours copying files, it added.

By then, Lal would have got her letter of appointment from SpiceJet, as her profile on LinkedIn showed, said InterGlobe. Till date, Lal has not returned the information in her possession, it said.

Responding to ET on these accusations, Lal said all the information in her possession was required to be handed over to her managers — Ankur Goel and Vineet Mittal — after she resigned. “I duly handed over all the files,” she said.

Any transfer of data by an employee is immediately flagged to the (IndiGo) IT department through the DLP software, said Lal, adding that therefore, any unauthorised transfer of data on her part would have been immediately known to IndiGo. “The allegation that I kept copying files in an unauthorised manner from June to September 2015 is patently absurd and baseless since IndiGo could have easily withdrawn such privileges from me as I was still working at IndiGo then.”

Lal said she resigned as per the terms of her employment by serving the due notice period of two months. “When I left, a farewell was organised for me. It took IndiGo more than five months after I left to file the FIR.”

On completing the notice period, all necessary internal clearances and due diligence, Lal said IndiGo cleared her final settlement. A letter duly relieving her from her position was provided on October 5, 2015, she said, adding that all these facts corroborate the absurdity of the allegations.

Lal said she has pointed out all these points to the investigating officers at the Gurgaon cyber crime unit.

The investigating officer quoted above said the police will examine the issues Lal has raised. “If she had stolen data, why was she given the final settlement?”

The police will now question Goel and investigate why it took IndiGo more than five months after Lal’s exit to file the FIR despite the installation of the DLP software, he said.

Lal said she will not be cowed down nor bullied by such cowardly acts. “This is an attempt by IndiGo to warn others working at IndiGo against the perils of leaving for a rival airline.”