22 INDIAN PORTALS WERE DEFACED BY PAKISTAN HACKERS

22 Indian Portals were defaced by hackers and breached the security firewall of 22 government department and organization websites of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Odisha states on Thursday night and posted content alleging atrocities by the Indian Army in Kashmir. Majority of the websites are maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and by Friday morning, all the hacked websites became inaccessible.

They included the Telangana animal husbandry department, AP forest development corporation and Odisha state police housing and welfare corporation. When contacted, CID officials of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have confirmed that they have not received any complaint from the government agencies. However, according to sources, following the complaint by TITA with Cyberabad police, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has already launched a full-fledged probe into the hacking incident.

According to the hackers Facebook page, they broke into 22 websites. On the defaced web sites, the hackers, who identified themselves as `1337 & r00x! – Team MaDLeeTs’ greeted the Government of India and then leveled several allegations against the Indian Army in Kashmir pertaining to civil rights violations. A video showing some army personnel assaulting civilians was posted. The hackers claimed that they care for humanity and the website intrusion was not intended for cyber war or steal information. “We are not asking for Kashmir. We ask for peace. Nothing deleted or stolen. Just here to deliver my message to the government and the people of India :),” said the hackers and signed off by saying Pakistan Zindabad. The miscreants gave two email IDs for contact.

“The Indian government has to increase the size of its cyber security team and introduce high quality, cost effective cyber security education and training methods to develop a robust cyber security workforce. This will also foster job growth in the cyber security Industry,” said Sundeep TITA President.