Following the arrest of one of its senior scientists, Pradeep Kurulkar, for allegedly leaking sensitive information to enemy spies, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has issued a strong warning to its personnel, advising them not to accept calls from unknown numbers and to avoid social media platforms.
“We have been issuing advisories and holding lectures by experts on maintaining cyber discipline but this incident has happened,” a DRDO official told. “After the arrest of senior Scientist Pradeep Kurulkar, we have issued a strong advisory to all our personnel to maintain cyber discipline like not taking calls from unknown numbers or foreign numbers,” official stated.
The military have also been told to avoid using social media since it might lead to interactions with strangers and becoming a victim of enemy intelligence agents, according to authorities.
Dr. Samir V Kamat, the director general of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, has taken a firm stance on the event, emphasizing that everyone in the defence research agency must behave and act properly when using the internet.
As stated by authorities, all employees must be responsible enough on social media and other applications because many such operations have been attempting to target specific officers using WhatsApp numbers largely from outside the nation.
The Defence Research and Development Organization works on Top Secret Defence projects that are crucial to India’s security requirements.
Advisory to stop Honey trapping cases in DRDO
Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad on May 3, detained Pradeep Kurulkar, a prominent DRDO scientist, on suspicion of leaking critical material to a virtual honey trapper suspected of being a Pakistani intelligence officer. He was reportedly honey-trapped by a lady he met on social media last year.
The DRDO had conducted an investigation into his activities and discovered him to be leaking information, thus he was fired as Director of the lab he was leading in Pune. He was the head of the Pune Research & Development Establishment (Engineers).
