Vendor in Somalia, account in Dubai: ISA traces cybercrime incidents

ISA has filed a police complaint and issued show cause notice to a section of its staff suspected to be involved in the incident

In two incidents of cybercrime in a month, India’s first global outreach body International Solar Alliance (ISA) has claimed to have lost Rs 3 crore when a payment to its Somalia-based vendor was found to be diverted to an imposter account, prompting the organisation to file a police complaint and issue show-cause notice to a section of its staff suspected to be involved in the incident.

The ISA has acknowledged the incident, which occurred in September, in a letter to Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Pralhad Joshi, who also heads the organisation currently.
 

“The cyber attacker changed the details of the banks of our international vendors and sent invoices for payments (which had to be made to our vendors) to be paid to the fraudulent bank accounts. The hacker replaced original emails and planted fraudulent emails with a request letter and invoices to be paid to fraudulent bank accounts,” the letter by ISA Director General Ajay Mathur to the minister said.
 

The organisation said that the payment was intended for Somalia-based vendors of ISA which engage in the outreach and infrastructure building activities of the organisation in the region, it said.
 

“We made payments of $357,783 (Rs 3 crore) in good faith, but because of the forgery and cheating, there is now a possibility of disputes with the vendors/banks of the same amount,” the letter stated.
 

Business Standard has reviewed a copy of the letter. A questionnaire emailed to ISA and text message to Mathur remained unanswered till the time of going to print.
 

This is the second instance of cybercrime faced by the organisation during the last month. The first incident concerned a German vendor, ISA said.
 

In its letter, ISA said they first noticed a security breach on September 19 and on September 23, their Somalian vendor Hayle Barise Energy Solutions informed them that they have not received any payment.  

“On further investigation, it was found that we paid the amount based on a fraudulent email changing the bank account to one in Dubai,” the letter said, adding that during the same period, account details of another vendor RENAC AG in Germany were also changed to a fraudulent one.
 

The letter said that ISA has filed a police complaint, issued show cause notice to a section of its staff suspected to be involved in the incident, and has started corrective steps and awareness programmes.
 

During the launch of ISA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi touted ISA to become an OPEC-like global body for clean energy. The ISA currently has 120 signatory countries and 101 member countries. The ISA Framework Agreement aims to mobilise $1,000 billion investment in solar energy and deliver 1000 Gw of solar power capacity to 1 billion people by 2030. 
 

ISA has said in the past they have opened an opportunity of 9.5 Gw for private investors in countries such as Mali, Cuba, Venezuela, Prague, Uganda, and Ethiopia among others. Most African nations are part of the ISA network. It is also the nodal body for the One Sun One World and One Grid initiative announced by the Prime Minister which will connect solar power rich nations through a common power transmission network.

Most African nations are part of the ISA network and ISA also focuses several projects in that region aimed at tech innovations and off the grid solar solutions.