The Scorpene submarine project is one of India’s biggest defence projects along with the FGFA fifth generation fighter jet project.
The Scorpene submarines are our most advanced submarines. The project costs a whopping 3.5 billion dollars!
20,000 documents with the intimate details of the submarine’s secret stealth design were leaked. An Australian newspaper made the news of the leak public.
Just to jog you up with the basics, the difference between an advanced submarine and a regular submarine is its acoustic signature. Stealth submarines like the six India is constructing in Mazgaon docks, had a very small acoustic signature. And hence sonar systems aboard enemy ships would have had a hard time locating the submarines.
In the leak, the ship’s sonar capabilities, the noise it generates and details of combat systems are completely exposed.
This means that the submarines are not really stealthy anymore, with the secrets of its acoustics out.
Our defence minister took note of the “hacking” and said that the government is investigating further
“I understand there has been a case of hacking, we will find out what has happened”
It is also important to note that the leak happened outside of India. The Navy officials are playing the incident down, saying that the “leak is not substantial”
 What is weird about the whole incident is that the company that is contracted for building the submarines DCNS, France is also building Scorpene submarines for Australia too.
But the leaked documents have no sensitive details of the submarines being constructed for the Australian fleet.
One wonders why.
News Source – NDTV