There have been recent attacks on several Indian government websites to bring them down and deface them. Experts believe that Indonesian Hacktivists ( individuals or organizations who hack for political activism ) and Threat actors are responsible for these attacks.
It is speculated that the reason for these attacks is India’s stance on the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Indonesian Hacktivists have a history of targeting government websites both within Indonesia and outside of it as well.
On January 13th, the Indian Army website was down for more than two hours due to the actions of Indonesian hackers called Mr D1CK and TOXCAR Cyber. Additionally, the Census of India website was breached, and the personal information of some individuals was shared on public channels and forums.
Similarly, a group of hackers called Lulzsec Muslims of Indonesia claimed that they managed to break into the Banaras Hindu University or IIT BHU’s website and database, obtaining personally identifiable information of several students.
This is not the first time that such incidents have occurred. A similar attack happened last year when Indonesian Hacktivists launched a massive cyber-attack on Indian websites to protest against the G20 summit being held in the country.
These incidents raise questions about the security of our data and whether our governments are taking enough steps to prevent cyber-attacks from occurring. The current attacks reveal several loopholes in the government’s way of storing or “securing” data of its citizens.