Suspected Chinese hackers on Friday defaced the official websites of Ministries of Defence, Home, and law & Justice besides 20 other websites of various Government departments. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted, “Action is initiated after the hacking of the MoD website (http://mod.Nic.In). The website shall be restored shortly.”
Defence Ministry officials said there were Chinese characters on the website and there were clear indications that Chinese hackers were involved in defacing it. “The National Informatics Centre, which maintains the website, is trying to restore it,” a spokesperson in the Ministry said.
However, officials of National Informatics Centre (NIC) — an entity which works under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology — claimed that the websites were not hacked. Due to a technical snag in storage, about 10 Government websites hosted in the NIC data centre became inaccessible to the public, they said.
“The National Informatics Centre, which maintains the website, is trying to restore it,” a spokesperson in the Ministry said.
However, Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) chief Gulshan Rai said there has been no cyber attack or any sabotage. “It is a hardware failure affecting around ten Government websites. Drupal is a content management software used by the affected websites. The websites will be restored soon,” he said. His organisation looks after all aspects of cyber security in the country.