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SINGAPORE \u2013 A man attached to the State Courts as an external info-communication technology vendor made an unlawful modification to a government-managed laptop issued to him, allowing an unauthorised person to access it remotely.<\/p>\n
This compromised the safety of more than 18,000 files belonging to the State Courts, although no exfiltration took place during the remote connection.<\/p>\n
Janarthanan Tamil Kovan, 42, was sentenced to 28 weeks\u2019 jail on Sept 28 after he pleaded guilty to one count each of misusing a computer system and an offence under the Official Secrets Act.<\/p>\n
Ironically, he committed the offences as he wanted to use the government-managed laptop to take an examination in information security, as his personal laptop had a faulty screen.<\/p>\n
Deputy Public Prosecutor Matthew Choo said: \u201cWhile the files themselves did not contain any sensitive case-specific information, (they) contained information that could potentially be used to gain unauthorised access to various systems that contained sensitive and confidential information, such as case information and judges\u2019 notes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Court documents stated that Janarthanan, an Indian national, was employed as a service delivery manager with information technology firm Lenovo PCCW Solutions in 2017.<\/p>\n
In June 2024, he was attached to the State Courts as an external vendor, and was a team leader of its cloud system team, which managed the various systems and applications there.<\/p>\n
He was issued with the government-managed laptop, which contained 18,016 files belonging to the State Courts, including the login credentials of the State Courts\u2019 network.<\/p>\n
The laptop was protected by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore\u2019s (GovTech) Security Suite for Engineering Endpoint Devices (SEED), a mobile device management platform.<\/p>\n
On Aug 4, 2025, Janarthanan tried to use the laptop to take an examination to obtain certification as a \u201cCertified Information Security Manager\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, the laptop was unable to clear the necessary security checks.<\/p>\n
Janarthanan then reached out for help from a man identified as \u201cHari Balan\u201d, whom he had previously communicated with on WhatsApp about IT-related courses.<\/p>\n
Hari Balan asked Janarthanan to download \u201cUltraViewer\u201d to the laptop, so Hari Balan could remotely access and control the device.<\/p>\n
Janarthanan did as he was told, and a remote connection was later established between the laptop and another device with an internet protocol address traced to India.<\/p>\n
During the remote connection, Hari Balan transferred several files into the laptop.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, GovTech\u2019s SEED team was alerted to the presence of the files on the laptop and contacted Janarthanan.<\/p>\n
Janarthanan falsely denied the running of UltraViewer and claimed that the laptop was unresponsive.<\/p>\n
The team later reported the incident to the Government IT Security Incident Response team (GITSIR).<\/p>\n
To cover his tracks, Janarthanan cleared the laptop\u2019s browsing history on Aug 5, 2025.<\/p>\n
Two days later, he also deleted the UltraViewer application folder.<\/p>\n
He did so before handing over the laptop to GITSIR<\/p>\n
He was later arrested in June 2026.<\/p>\n
Following this incident, the State Courts\u2019 Innovation, Technology and Transformation Division undertook a change of all implicated security keys.<\/p>\n
Immediate mitigation measures were also employed, including password changes.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the State Courts also conducted a review of their systems and traffic logs to ensure that no anomalies, unauthorised accesses or data exfiltration had occurred.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Singapore Courts said: \u201cUpon discovery of the suspicious activity, (we) took immediate steps to secure our systems and worked closely with the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no loss of court documents, and no unauthorised access to our documents or systems was detected.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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