17-year-old arrested for hacking UPSC website on September 10
The Special Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a 17-year-old boy for hacking the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) website on September 10. Police said the boy belongs to Uttar Pradesh and is pursuing a technical course from a central university in Delhi and stayed in a rented house. The boy's father, a businessman who lives abroad, has been informed about the incident.
The boy had recently learned about hacking
The boy told the police that he had recently learned about hacking from the Internet and was trying to hack several government websites for the last three weeks. "The boy had been trying to hack several government websites for the last three weeks but failed. Ultimately, he found the Commission's website was vulnerable and hacked it," a police official told the Indian Express.
Backstory: The UPSC website was hacked for a few hours
On September 10 the UPSC's website was hacked for a few hours. But the incident was brought to light by some students who shared the screenshots of the hacked website on Twitter. The hacked website displayed an image of a heart and cartoon character, Doraemon with the caption- "Doraemon!!!! Pick up the call," and "I.M. STEWPEED" written on an image on the homepage.
Notably, 22,000 websites hacked between April 2017 till January 2018
As per the government data, over 22,000 Indian websites and portals were hacked between April 2017 and January 2018. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, KJ Alphons, stated that as per Indian Computer Emergency Response Team's data, a total of 22,207 Indian websites were hacked in the period, including over 114 government portals.
