Ashwin Vaishnaw: 50 government websites hacked in 2022-23

Ashwin Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Communication, Electronics, and Information Technology, revealed that around 50 government websites were hacked between 2022-23, at Rajya Sabha on Friday. Furthermore, he revealed that 59 instances of government website hacking were recorded in 2020, 42 instances in 2021, and 50 websites were hacked in 2022. Along with that, the minister stated that six, seven, and eight instances of data breaches were recorded in 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively.

CERT-in further added that they detected and successfully prevented 2,83,581 malicious scams in 2020. The number grew to 4,32,057 in 2021 and then, it was at 3,24,620 in 2022. The cybercriminal attempts originated both from within India and abroad. One of the stats that Vaishnaw mentioned during the Rajya Sabha meeting stated that there have been 641 government Twitter accounts, websites, and emails compromised in the last five years as of April 2022.

As a common practice, the hackers used hidden servers to prevent their system’s identities. For the unversed, every device connected to the internet has a specific address that it can be linked. Other techniques were used to conduct the malicious activities on a large scale.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) coordinates with ISPs, law enforcement authorities, and regulators to take appropriate actions and prevent such incidents. CERT-In keeps a tab on such malicious activities and offers remedial actions to the affected parties to prevent prevalent damage. It issues alerts and advisories regarding ongoing vulnerabilities and countermeasures from time to time.

The number of malicious activities and compromised social media, websites and emails compromised between 2017 and 2022 has reduced considerably.