The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Software engineer held for cyber crime

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 29, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Software engineer held for cyber crime

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The Cyber Crime Cell of the CID Crime Branch on Friday arrested a former employee of an information technology (IT) company on charges of hacking into the server and stealing confidential data.

A press note issued by S. Balu, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime Cell, said police had arrested M.S. Ramasamy, a 37-year-old software engineer from Avadi, on charges of hacking and stealing confidential and proprietary information from the server of Caterpillar, a US-based construction and mining company.

Mr. Ramasamy had reportedly hacked into “Research and Engineering Documents Inquiry System” (REDI) when he was working as an engineer in Caterpillar India Private Limited during January and February this year. The company has an engineering design centre at the Ascendas IT Park in Taramani.

When contacted, Mr. Balu said the accused had gained access to the company’s server headquartered at Peoria in Illinois, US, using another employee’s user ID and password and downloaded over 4,000 confidential documents. A closed circuit camera had visuals of him accessing the server at the time when the files were downloaded. A user log reflected the password and user ID used for gaining entry into the server.

Police arrested Mr. Ramasamy at Hosur, where he was employed with an IT company. They also confiscated the storage media, including hard disk and pen drive, containing the files.

Charges have been framed under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (Hacking) and Section 408 of the Indian Penal Code (Criminal Breach of Trust by clerk or servant).

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