FOLLOW UP TO COMPUTER HACKING INCIDENT:

GIA Discloses Companies Banned in Hacking Investigation

Rob Bates | October 27, 2015 JCK

The Gemological Institute of America is publicly disclosing the names of the 19 companies it says submitted diamonds that received altered grading reports due to unauthorized remote access of its computer system.

The companies can no longer submit stones to the lab, pending further investigation by Indian police.

A statement says that Indian authorities have also arrested two former employees of Tata Consultancy Services, the GIA’s systems provider, in the investigation. GIA said it did not know what they are charged with. Tata did not respond to a request for comment.
The discovery of the unauthorized access has led GIA to invalidate 1,042 grading reports. Their report numbers, along with the submitting companies, can be seen here.

GIA decided to release the names after “police informed GIA that the investigation has reached a point where we may now publish the client accounts that submitted the diamonds in question,” according to a statement.

GIA’s spreadsheet lists 19 submitting companies, mostly based in India, though at least one looks to be based in Hong Kong. Most of the clients submitted dozens of diamonds; three listed names submitted only one. At least two seem to share common ownership.

The spreadsheet lists the stones’ report numbers, carat weights, and shapes. It does not list their color and clarity, as they have may have been altered.

Several of the diamonds can be found online. For instance, Googling GIA report 1208363128—a 1.43 ct. round brilliant—leads to several online diamond listings, most of which have been removed.

Here is an online scan of one invalidated report (5203571257), which says the accompanying a 1.06 ct. stone has been graded D internally flawless.

GIA “strongly request[s]” that anyone in possession of any of these diamonds and grading reports return them immediately to GIA for examination at no charge.
Entering the affected report numbers into its online Report Check returns the message: “The report you requested has been invalidated; the report and the diamond must be returned to GIA for further review. The report will not be available in Report Check until the diamond is re-examined.”
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At press time, it could not say how many of the 1,042 affected reports or diamonds have been returned.