In recent time hackers are flowing to India, as numerous Indian website mainly Government controlled one’s are being targeted and hacked. According to a confidential report from CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) around 4,191 Indian websites which includes both Government and private parties website were defaced or hacked into in August 2013. Earlier in July around 2,380 websites, in June 2,858 websites and in May 1,808 websites were hacked.
It’s to be noted that a very high percentage (80% in June and over 60% thereafter) of this sophisticated hacking attempts were targeted on .in domain, whose servers are located in India. This brings an alarming situation as .in domain appears particularly vulnerable to attacks.
Recently only Pakistani hacker group ‘Mr.Creepy‘ hacked the state-owned telecom operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) Mumbai, website and replaced the webpage with a message. [read more in our previous article]
The main hackers and defaces of Indian websites are mainly from Pakistan and China, mainly SA3D HaCk3D, h4x0r HuSsY, SanFour2S, BD GREY HAT HACKERS, Suwario, SpyDy, hasnain haxor and CouCouM. Their main objective is to steal valuable information from India’s critical infrastructure and then take full control the activities of the website. The hacking attack prove huge trouble to national security, as we are now more exposed.
Another major activity include Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) carrying down an secret operation to hack into Govt owned BSNL‘s network and planted malware on some important databases. This enable them to identify and access communication links of sensitive organizations. [read more in our previous article]
On July 2013, Indian government with an aim to protect its citizens privacy, corporate data and sovereign virtual assets including telecommunications systems, nuclear plant and military assets from cyber attacks today released its first National Cyber Security Policy 2013. It serves as an umbrella framework for defining and guiding the actions related to security of cyberspace. The policy provides an overview to protect information and information infrastructure in cyberspace build capabilities to prevent and respond to cyber threats, reduce vulnerabilities structures, people, processes, technology and cooperation.
But the progress is still going on in a slow manner, just like our any other Government orders. With more and more information flowing to the digital arena, Government should take serious steps to protect their valuable digital assets and with more and more Indian’s going online each year Government need to make sure it’s citizen are safe online.