A rookie group of Pakistani hackers have claimed to have hacked about 7,070 Indian websites, mostly non-government, the names of which they released on Tuesday.
Cyber security specialists have said that the hackers are no specialists but actually 'script kiddies' who make use of the existing scripts to hack websites and not even write their own codes.
The hacked websites have logo of the hacking group Pakistan Haxors Crew accompanied by a song "Ae watan tera ishara aagaya, ar sipahi ko pukar aagaya..." (Oh nation, we've received your signal, every soldier has got his call(ing)..." that plays with a scroll that says, "Tum ne socha tha, hum ne kar dikhaya" (You had thought, we've done it).
This is not the first claim to fame for the group as it has in the past hacked websites of Tata Motors, AIADMK and Taj Mahal. The group also exclaimed on Tuesday that it won't be the last time either.
This incident brings to light the vulnerability of Indian websites to such threats. Reports from the communication and information technology ministry reveal that about 1,490 government websites have become the target of hackers between January 2010 and December 2015. This year's data has not yet been revealed.
Mirza Faizan Asad, legal head, Global Cyber Security Response Team said that if websites could be hacked by such rookie hackers, the extent of damage done by real hackers could be unprecedented.
August 2013 witnessed one of the worst hackings of an Indian government website when the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) website became the target of 'PhrozenMyst'. A lot of sensitive data pertaining to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) was stolen.
This was followed by a brief period of inactivity by the hackers but the numbers again steeped in 2015.
There is always a school of thought that will argue, ‘why can’t we buy software?’ But one must understand that you cannot trust these companies that we buy from to provide a vulnerability-free software or system. Intrusion or hacking happens when there are vulnerabilities.Aravind Prakash, associate professor at Binghamton University, US
(With Inputs from The Times of India)
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