Thiruvananthapuram: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Wednesday denied reports claiming that around 31 GB of its data had been stolen and put up for sale on the dark web, describing the claims as false and unverified.

The clarification came after the Thiruvananthapuram-based Alibi Global Threat Intelligence Group claimed that approximately 31 GB of DRDO data, including sensitive information, was being offered for sale on the dark web.

Responding to the claims, DRDO said a detailed investigation had found that the data 'alleged to be leaked' was unclassified and did not contain confidential information.

"Certain unclassified data that is being shown as critical is from an old data breach of 2020-2022 vintage," the organisation said in a statement.

DRDO said some documents had been fabricated to make the data appear confidential. It also added that the documents being circulated were outdated and no longer relevant. "The relevance of this outdated documentation has been evaluated and is no longer applicable. The claims, therefore, made are unverifiable," it said.

According to DRDO, its investigation found that the same dataset was being offered for sale by multiple threat actors. "The data being sold is the same across these threat actors and bears no current relevance to the department and the ministry," DRDO said.

Financial motives, DRDO said, may be behind such a move. "The allegedly leaked data has been deliberately fabricated by the threat actors, motivated by financial gains, to cause panic, collect larger sums of money for the data and appear authentic," the statement said.

DRDO reiterated that there is no evidence of any active cyber attack, unauthorised network intrusion, or ongoing data exfiltration.