Cyber crime continues to rise in India; 78 sites hacked this year

In a detailed written response to the Lok Sabha, India’s MoS for Communications & IT Milind Deora revealed that a total of 78 government websites have been hacked up to June 2013.

Deora was communicating information reported to and tracked by the Indian Computer Response Team (CERT-In), who also found that in the past two years (2011 and 2012) a total of 308 and 371 websites had been comprised, respectively.

The Minister also informed the Lower House that as many as 16,035 instances of scanning, spam, malware infection, DDoS attacks and system break-in affecting the government, defence and public sector undertakings have been reported up to June this year. He added that the nation also witnessed as many as 13,301 instances of security breaches in 2011, and 22,060 in 2012. Deora added that it is known that miscreants were compromising computer systems located in different parts of the world and that they use hidden servers to conceal the true identity of the system that is being used to further the attacks. “It is difficult to attribute the origin of cyber attacks,” he said.

Cyber crime continues to rise in India (Image credit: Getty Images)

In the wake of such a situation, the Minister stressed that all new government websites must be audited with respect to cyber security before they are hosted.

Even as India continues its march towards being technologically adept, it continues to grapple with instances of rising cyber crime. Last month, the latest edition of India's cyber security policy - the National Cyber Security Policy 2013 - was unveiled. It aims to safeguard information and fortify the nation’s efforts to prevent cyber-attacks. On the whole, the policy will look to protect India’s physical and business assets. Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal who released the policy in the national capital admitted that while the policy offered a broad sketch of the government’s vision in the area of cyber security, the “real task or the challenge is the operationalisation of this policy.”

The National Cyber Security Policy 2013 comprises 14 objectives including creating a cyber ecosystem in the country, offering fiscal benefits to businesses for taking up standard security practices and processes, building effective public private partnerships, and collaborative engagements through technical and operational co-operation.

With inputs from news sources