unable to access salary details on the Principal Comptroller of
Defence Accounts (Officers) website which was allegedly hacked late
last month. All vital and sensitive data related to officers' service
and financial details are feared to have been stolen by suspected
Pakistani or Chinese hackers.
What most officers of all ranks are deeply aggrieved about is that
while PCDAO and army brass as well the defence ministry are aware of
the hacking, no measures had been taken to restore the website.
"It speaks of the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities. There is
no urgency on the part of the government to plug the massive hole and
retrieve the data," said a disgruntled officer with the Southern
Command venting his discontent at PCDAO authorities.
MoD and the Army have started investigation into the hacking, but the
issue has been kept under wraps for fear of an uproar among officers
some of whom apprehend that key components of their salary - provident
fund or travel allowance/dearness allowance --might have been swept
clean by the online miscreants.
"We have no clue what might have happened to our salary because we are
not being able to access our salary slips. The hackers have hit where
it hurts the officer corps the most," said a major general who did not
wish to be identified.
Indeed, the PCDAO website is central to an officer's finances. He or
she can not only access information on the salary, but also audit and
details on allowances, including leave travel allowance, receipt of
claims, proof of IT returns. Officers also apply for PF withdrawals
through the website.
Officers' individual accounts which can be accessed through a username
and password carry other details such as their exact areas of posting,
the units they belong to, PAN card numbers and bank account details
among other things.
Many officers claimed these constitute sensitive information that
foreign agencies might be interested in getting hold of. Preliminary
investigations revealed that all data of officers across regiments
have been "stolen from the Mumbai server through a remote login port."
Several officers TOI spoke to claimed that when they tried to log into
the accounts at pcdaopune.gov.in, they found that few elements of the
original website were intact, but at the bottom there were screaming
adverts on call girls. And now the website cannot be accessed at all -
a clear indication that PCDAO and MoD officials have displayed
lethargy to restore it or, for that matter, probe whether data had
been lost or online miscreants managed to transfer out money from
officers' accounts.
The defence establishment initially put up on the PCDAO website that
it would "resume shortly", saying "salary upload is in progress".
Subsequently, the website shut down completely. When approached for a
comment, a defence spokesperson claimed he had no information that the
PCDAO website had been hacked.
A PCDAO spokesperson, when contacted, admitted that several officers,
alarmed by the disruption, have been approaching officers in Pune to
make inquiries why they were not being able to access their salary
details. The spokesperson, however, claimed that the website had
crashed because of "modification of the computer system" which caused
an erroneous transfer of data.
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