Top Indian tech supplier reports ‘cybersecurity incident’

MUMBAI: A top Indian maker of iPhone parts has confirmed it was hit by a “cybersecurity incident”, with media reports alleging that Apple supplier specifications had been leaked.

Industrial giant Tata Group is a lynchpin of Apple’s growing supply chain within the world’s most populous country.

On Monday, reports said over 600 gigabytes of data, allegedly stolen from the conglomerate’s subsidiary Tata Electronics, were made available on the dark web.

Specialist news site TechCrunch said it had found what appeared to be “Apple supplier specifications and Tesla manufacturing documents”.

AFP could not independently verify the claims. Apple and Tesla did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

A Tata Electronics spokesperson told AFP the company had identified an incident but that it had no impact on operations.

“A few weeks ago, Tata Electronics identified a cybersecurity incident on some of our systems,” the spokesperson said.

“Our response protocols were deployed immediately, and the incident has had no impact on our operations across businesses, which remain unaffected.”

India has been a major beneficiary of Apple’s decision to broaden its production outside of China.

The breach however is the latest incident to affect Tata Group, as it seeks to secure a larger share of global supply chains.

Last week, Tata Electronics said it had received a notice from local environmental authorities in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, over claims of water contamination from its factory.

But it said the concerns were “satisfactorily addressed” and that officials had “dropped any further course of action on this issue”.