Singapore sentences Indian IT vendor for endangering State Courts’ data

An Indian IT vendor working with Singapore’s State Courts was sentenced to 28 weeks in jail after granting unauthorised remote access to a government-issued laptop containing over 18,000 court-related files.

Singapore: An Indian national has been sentenced to 28 weeks in jail for compromising the safety of more than 18,000 files belonging to Singapore’s State Courts while working as an IT vendor, officials said.

Janarthanan Tamil Kovan, 42, pleaded guilty on Monday to endangering the safety of documents belonging to the State Courts and the Government of Singapore under the Official Secrets Act and making an unlawful modification to a government-managed laptop issued to him, local media reported. A third charge was taken into consideration.

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Although he had granted an acquaintance remote access to the laptop, no files were transferred during the session.

In June 2024, Janarthanan, a service delivery manager with Lenovo PCCW Solutions, was attached to the State Courts as an external IT vendor. He was a team leader of the State Courts’ cloud system team, which manages various systems and applications of the courts.

Janarthanan was issued with a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop, a government-managed device governed by GovTech’s acceptable use policy and Lenovo’s own policy. Both policies prohibit unauthorised access and modifications to the laptop.

On August 4, 2025, Janarthanan decided to use the laptop to take an examination for an international professional association focused on information technology governance, to be certified as a certified information security manager. His own laptop was faulty.

When he could not operate the security-protected laptop, Janarthanan reached out to a person he knew as Hari Balan, whom he had communicated with previously on WhatsApp about IT-related courses. Balan had an IP address in India, Channel News Asia reported, citing court documents.

At the time of the connection, 18,016 files belonging to the State Courts were stored on Janarthanan’s laptop. All but one of the files were classified as restricted and non-sensitive. The remaining file was classified as restricted and sensitive (high).

The files contained login credentials, secret keys and network architecture details of the State Courts’ network.

On August 14, 2025, a representative from the Corporate Services Division of the Singapore judiciary lodged a police report about the unauthorised installation of the remote desktop application.

Janarthanan was investigated by the Technology Crime Investigation Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department.

While the files themselves did not contain any sensitive case-specific information, the files contained information that could potentially be used to gain unauthorised access to systems that had sensitive and confidential information, such as case information and judges’ notes.

Janarthanan, in September 2025, admitted that his actions endangered the safety of the files, which could have been transferred or stolen when the remote connection was established.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Matthew Choo sought seven to nine months’ jail, saying Janarthanan had been entrusted with a laptop containing sensitive information.

“He ought to have known better, as a team leader of the State Courts’ cloud system team, to not allow unauthorised accesses to and make unauthorised modifications to the laptop,” the Channel quoted Choo as saying. “Ironically, he did so to take an examination for information security.”

Defence lawyers S Balamurugan and A Ravidass sought three to four months’ jail instead. Balamurugan said his client has two children back in India with his wife and his family is facing financial difficulties.

District Judge Lorraine Ho noted, however, that the risk of harm was great as there could be a systemic attack causing possible public alarm and fear. He also noted the offender had allowed an unknown foreign entity to have unauthorised access to data on his laptop.