As many as 112 government websites, including those of Planning Commission, the Finance Ministry and various State government agencies, were hit by cyber attacks during a three-month period ending February 2012, reveals minister of state for communications and IT Sachin Pilot in the Lok Sabha.
The minister further revealed that the website of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) was hacked on December 4, 2011 by a hacker group called ‘H4tr!ck’. The websites of Finance, Health, Human Resource Development ministries and Planning Commission also suffered the cyber attacks. A number of state government websites, including those of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, came under attack.
Pilot also said that the Department of Information Technology and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) are working on upgrading their skills to handle threats from cyber attackers. The agencies are working on upgrading the Firewalls and new filters are being added to keep the hackers at bay.
The minister’s revelation has not surprised much as the government sites have been long targeted by the hackers. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) recently disclosed that the government sites were hacked almost 200 times during the Commonwealth Games in 2010. The DRDO also pointed out that more resources were required to control these cyber attacks in near future.
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