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Cyber attack on 10 govt websites in last few days !! |
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Written by crashoveride
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Thursday, 12 June 2008 |
 Hackers have struck again with nearly 10 websites belonging to various ministries and departments of the government of India coming under attack in the last few days. The hackers are suspected to be from China, though there was no official confirmation.
Confirming the cyber attack, a senior IT ministry official told DNA,
“Low to medium intensity cyber intrusions into web servers maintained
by the Indian government have been reported.”
The IT ministry’s computer emergency response team downplayed the
violations calling them routine efforts by other parties to map out
networks.
Nearly 7,000 websites are hacked every year in India which means that
on an average 19 sites are hacked a day. For us this is routine
business, not a cyber attack,” a top CERT official told.
Government officials, who tried to access the websites, reported
problems like not being able to log into the email servers and not
being able to transfer files through the networks. A few websites had
to be shut down.
By Friday afternoon, the glitches had been fixed and most of the 10 sites were functioning normally again.
In a significant shift, government officials who deal with cyber
attacks refused to name any country as suspect. Last month, the
ministry of external affairs had alleged its networks had been
compromised by suspected Chinese hackers.
Two years ago the international diplomatic community began taking the
threat of Chinese hackers seriously. Last year, within a span of six
months beginning May, the UK, US, France and Germany claimed that
suspected Chinese hackers had broken into their web servers. In
September last year, DNA first reported that suspected Chinese hackers
had breached cyber security at high levels in the government of India
as well with many cabinet ministers complaining that their emails
accounts had been hacked.
However, in the absence of any clinching evidence, the global
diplomatic community could not risk pointing fingers at China
especially after the embarrassment Estonia suffered. In May last year
Estonia had alleged that its government networks had been violated by
hackers backed by the Russian government. In January this year, it was
revealed that the attacks had been carried out by a disgruntled college
hacker.
Even a continuing series of sophisticated cyber assaults is no longer
evidence of another country’s government being involved, said a senior
official familiar with India’s cyber command. The hackers could simply
be out there to make money by setting up malware in a government
network. “We need to protect our systems better. There is no point
blaming anyone anymore,” the official added.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 11 December 2010 )
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