Operation Infopark

One of the reasons I am in Kerala, India is because they have a very fast growing IT industry here. One example of that is the InfoPark complex in Kochi. Here is a quote from their site- " The Infopark is spread over 100 acres now and still growing, making it one of the largest and advanced locations for the Information Technology industry. The master plan envisages 2 million sqft by 2008."

There are some big company names in the area like Infosys and Wipro which are the largest IT companies in India. The link below is an article from USA Today telling how important Infosys is to the world IT market: (there are over 52,000 employees...that's big)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-30-infosys-india_x.htm

When I found out that InfoPark was in Kochi, I wanted to visit the place to see where all the big IT companies have offices. The closest I had come to seeing the buildings and offices was from the Infopark web site showing the project schedule of the building that are there and what buildings are being built.

http://www.infoparkkochi.com/schedule.php#sdf

Ok. these are nice pics, but I wanted to see this for myself to get a real sense of how big this place is. When I talked to Jobi, Vijay and Franklin, who are my co-workers at IdentityMine, about taking some pics at Infopark, they told me security is very tight. It may not be possible to get pics of the inside, but I could get pics of the outside. As we continued to discuss the situation, a plan was devised to get me inside of the buildings at Infopark. This took weeks of planning and preparation as the execution would be critical. There were numerous guards to avoid, motion sensor's, security cameras...an entire security network that need to be avoided. It was tough work, but when the day came for the break in, we felt really prepared.

 Phase one - Entry

Getting onto the Infopark campus grounds was not that difficult as security was very lacking. As we drove through various security check points, we posed as vistitors who were here to see a particular employee. We knew that security would not check if the employee existed or not, but we did use a valid employee name just in case. We also did surveillance on this particular employee because we knew he was going on vacation. Once the employee was on a plane to Mumbai, we were ready to act on our plans to infiltrate Inforpark.

Phase two - Thapasya

Our first building to penetrate was the Thapasya building. This was the oldest building in Inforpark, and it would be the easiest to breach.

 

You can tell from the pic of the Thapasya building, that we acted on our plan after dusk to make it more difficult for security to recognize us. We were hoping this would be the easiest building to break into because the employee that was on vacation was in this building. So we boldly walked right up, and headed toward the elevator as if we owned the place. The security guard on watch, called us out, and we quickly explained who we were going to visit, and then hurried onto the elevator in case he checked his computer...which he didn't. At this point, we had access to general lobby areas, but nothing to serious. During our planning, we knew that to get into the confidential areas, we needed more than just a ruse like the one we used to get through the first security check at the entrance of the building. So, we looked and found, an inside man. We hooked up with him on the 3rd floor, and because he had a badge, we had access to a lot of areas.

 

 

We got access to Genfocus Infotech and Charter BFO solutions.

 

We easily sneaked into the Smart Solutions Centre which had numerous small companies that rent affordable space. This was not a high espionage area for us, but these small companies do work with larger firms, and we thought it was worth the risk to check it out.

 

With the inside man by our side, it was going so well, we stopped to see what was on the menu at the cafe in the building. We also did some analysis of the ATM security system. We didn't want to trigger any alarms at this point, and it was not part of our main objectives. So, we kept our distance from the ATM and stuck with our plan - "deviating from the plan is when bad things happen", my mentor always used to say.

 

Phase 3 - Vismaya

Once we gathered all the information we could from Thapasya, we headed to the Vismaya building. Our inside man bailed on us at this point. We understood his position, and we let him go. The Vismaya building has the tightest security in the entire compound, but that's where the best kept secrets are as well. This was going to be a tough nut to crack, but things were going well and we were on schedule. We pushed on.

 

As you can tell from the pic above, we waited until dark to access this building. Again the parking security to the building fell for out "visiting an employee" story. When we got to the entrance, we walked right past the security guard without even blinking or looking at him. He did his job, and tried to stop us to ask what we were there for as he noticed we didn't have credentials. At this point, our previous rehearsals and weeks of planning paid off. Jobi and I continued walking, and turned left when we reached a hallway to get out of site. All the while, Franklin and Vijay pitched the "visiting an employee" story. If the guard called the office of the vacationing employee at this point, Franklin and Vijay would kicked out of the building, but Jobi and I were already inside snapping pics.

 

Luckily, the guard didn't follow through, and Franklin and Vijay met up with us about a minute later. While taking the shot above, the same guard at the entrance followed Franklin and Vijay to tell them they were not allowed to take pictures. Jobi and I were almost seen, but we managed to hide from site until we knew the guard was back at his post.

At this point, we were once again inside. But getting confidential information was going to be difficult without an inside man. So, we went from office to office looking for the vacationing employee. We thought we were home free when we reached the top floor, and there must have been a dozen security guards at this point. So, the gig was up. We managed to get the elevator door shut before they could reach us, and we got off on the 5 floor. At this point, the alarms were going off and security people were scrambling everywhere.

Phase 4 - Escape

 

I was able to take these shots as we ducked into a storage room, and after that we were checking the stairways. Sometimes we had to go up a floor as echoes of shuffling feet came from the lower stairwell. We knew we had to get out of the building fast. The longer we stayed the more chance we could get caught. What saved us was that other employees started exiting their offices which created enough chaos that we slipped back into the main entrance lobby without being seen. But as we quickly walked out the entrance, the security guard remembered seeing us, and we were on a flat run to the car at that point. It was almost pitch dark at this point, and we knew that would help us if we had to make a quick escape.

We got to the car, and Jobi, who was our driver, cranked up the engine, revved it once, dropped into first gear, and floored the gas pedal. The wheels squealed and the backend was fishtailing which threw us around for a few seconds until Jobi regained some control. When I looked back, all I saw was a few dozen flash lights being aimed in our direction by the security guards who were giving chase on foot.

 

I was able to get the pic above while we were were whizzing by at break neck speed dodging other vehicles. This is the Leela Infopark building which is the newer building. While we were casing the Infopark weeks earlier, we didn't target this building because only a very few number of companies had moved in. I only hoped we made a good choice going to Vismaya instead of Leela.

The problem at this point was that the electronic security gates could close off the entire compound, but we knew that it took almost 30 seconds to close them. Also, they could only be closed by the security personnel at the entrance of the Infopark compound.  I could only hope that there was enough chaos back at Vismaya, it would cause a delay in closing the gates. If the gates were closed, we would have to reach a very high speed to crash through it, and anything can happen after that...a punctured tire, the driver could lose control...a lot of bad things can happen. As we got closer to the Infopark entrance, we saw the gates closing, but they were not completely shut yet. Jobi kicked in the nitro tank, and all of us were slammed back into our seats. In a matter of only 1 or 2 seconds, we reached the gate very quickly, but the gate was closing just as quick. I heard the shattering of glass, the car floated a little bit, and I thought we might flip the car, but the car came back down. When I looked back, the gate was closed, and the cars two side view mirrors were laying on the road. The security guard was waving his fist in the air, and then went to the security phone to tell his peers what just happened.

Once we reached a main crossroad we turned left, and started running though back alleys. It was touch and go, but after about an hour, we made it back to Riverdale Resort.  Jobi, Vijay and Franklin headed back home as they needed to make sure their alibis were covered. Overall, it was a successful operation in the fact that we achieved the mission without casualty or a compromise of identity - mission accomplished.

Note: Peoples names have been altered to protect the guilty.

Here are some more links in case you need to case the joint for your own purposes:

All the Infopark pics are here

http://www.infosys.com/home.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infosys

http://www.infoparkkochi.com/atoz.php