#HackAlert: 48 Indian government websites hacked this year alone
Thanks to PM Modi's Digital India initiative, more and more people and businesses have come online and are using the web as a tool of availing different services and broadening their reach (among many other things). The development is good, but it has also given new targets to cybercriminals to attack and carry out nefarious acts like stealing money. Here's all about it.
Over 3 lakh cyberattacks carried out this year alone
In a recent report, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) revealed that more than 313,000 cybersecurity incidents have happened this year through the end of October. The number, which includes attacks like phishing, network scanning/probing, malicious code execution, viruses, and website hacking, has risen significantly from 208,000 attacks in 2018, 53,000 in 2017, and a mere 50,000 in 2016.
48 government websites also hacked this year
The worst thing about this situation is the fact that even the government is not fully shielded from cybercriminals. Sanjay Dhotre, the minister of state for electronics and IT, recently said in the Rajya Sabha that 48 websites of central and state government departments have been hacked this year through October, per CERT-In. Still, this number is significantly lesser than the last year's hacks.
Hackers are masking themselves, said Dhotre
Detailing the case of attacks, Dhotre added that hackers have been compromising systems around the world by employing masquerading techniques to mask the computer servers and systems from where the attacks are being launched. He said the IP addresses retrieved from the attacks indicated the threat actors may have belonged to several foreign regions, including China, Pakistan, Netherlands, France, Taiwan, Tunisia, and Russia.
Need for stronger cybersecurity practices, processes
The figures revealed by CERT-in indicate the need for stringent cybersecurity practices and processes to protect not just citizens of the country but also critical government facilities from attackers. State-sponsored attacks, be it a security breach or ransomware, can cripple a government and its working in no time, like how Lazarus Group's WannaCry left over 300,000 computers (including some of Indian government organizations) infected.
