Guwahati: Fifty government websites were hacked in 2022–2023, according to a written reply the Union Minister for Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology provided to Rajya Sabha on Friday.
A Union Minister briefed the upper house on the issue of the specifics of cyberattacks on the websites of Central Ministries/Departments and State Governments since 2020, year by year.
In response to a parliamentary inquiry from CPI MP Binoy Viswam, the Minister stated that, according to data gathered by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and reported to it, a total of 59, 42, and 50 websites belonging to Central Government Ministries/Departments and State Governments were respectively hacked in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
“CERT-In has further informed it has detected and prevented 2,83,581, 4,32,057, 3,24,620 malicious scams during the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively,” he informed Rajya Sabha
According to information provided to and monitored by CERT-In, a total of 6, 7 and 8 data breach events involving government organisations were recorded in the years 2020, 2021, and 2022, respectively.
” There have been attempts from time to time to launch cyber-attacks on Indian cyberspace from both outside and within the country. It has been observed that such attacks compromised computer systems located in different parts of the world and use masquerading techniques and hidden servers to hide the identity of actual systems from which the attacks are launched” he added
In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, the Union IT Minister also mentioned that CERT-In coordinates incident response procedures with affected organisations, service providers, the relevant sector regulators, and law enforcement authorities. Cyber events are reported to the affected organisations by CERT-In, along with any necessary corrective action.
Additionally, it continuously publishes alerts and advisories on the most recent cyberthreats, vulnerabilities and protective measures.